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Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Like
Pieces
Higher
Game
Lifeboat
Games
Lifeboats
Simple
Stakes
Ends
Chess
Much
Elements
Life
Couldn

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A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great originality.
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If literature does one thing, it makes you more empathetic by making you live other lives and feel the pain of others. Ideologues don't feel the pain of others because they haven't imaginatively got under their skins.
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Books are something social - a writer speaking to a reader - so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club, is a brilliant idea.
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It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.
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My alarm clock during my childhood was a pride of lions.
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Japanese-owned cargo ship Tsimtsum, flying Panamanian flag, sank July 2nd, 1977, in Pacific, four days out of Manila. Am in lifeboat. Pi Patel my name. Have some food, some water, but Bengal tiger a serious problem. Please advise family in Winnepeg, Canada. Any help very much appreciated. Thank you.
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Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity.
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If you write genre fiction, you follow the rules, and you have to follow them because readers expect that.
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A movie will do in one second, with one image, what it will take a novelist at least a page to describe.
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There is nothing more satisfying than having a sentence fall into place in a way you feel is right, and then adding another one and then another one. It's extraordinarily satisfying.
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My ears were full. Nothing more, not one more sound, could push into them and be registered.
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If you don't have dreams, how do you maneuver reality? Where do you get the ideas to change reality if not from dreams?
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Come aboard if your destination is oblivion- it should be our next stop. We can sit together. You can have the window seat if you want. But it's a sad view.
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Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? ... The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life.
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It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion.
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Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when he seemed indifferent to my suffering, he was watching. And when I was beyond all hope of saving, he gave me rest. Then he gave me a sign to continue my journey.
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Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
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You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.
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As much as I love movies, it would be presumptuous of me to think that I know how to make one.
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If you take two steps towards God,' he used to tell me, 'God runs to you!
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