Quote

High calls low and low calls high. I tell you, if you were in such dire straits as I was, you too would elevate your thoughts. The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Would
Lower
Calls
Lows
Thoughts
Higher
Straits
High
Dire
Tell
Elevate
Mind
Soar

More quotes by Yann Martel

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I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.
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People always seek to compare. They can take the new, but only if it is somehow connected to the familiar. We need that in our lives, the mix of the new and the old. But of course I'm flattered about the comparison with Old man and the sea. Hemingway is a great writer.
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I cannot think of a better way to spread the faith. No thundering from a pulpit, no condemnation from bad churches, no peer pressure, just a book of scripture quietly waiting to say hello, as gentle and powerful as a little girl's kiss on your cheek.
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My greatest wish — other than salvation — was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time.
Yann Martel
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Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.
Yann Martel
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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.
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Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.
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Don’t you bully me with your politeness!
Yann Martel
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I wept like a child. It was not because I was overcome at having survived my ordeal, though I was. Nor was it the presence of my brothers and sisters, though that too was very moving. I was weeping because ....fill in the blank with whatever/whoever helped you survive... had left me so unceremoniously.
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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.
Yann Martel
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As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.
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...animals don't escape from somewhere but from something
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It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.
Yann Martel
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In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match.
Yann Martel
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When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.
Yann Martel
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That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?
Yann Martel
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How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
Yann Martel
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I find that movies tend to fix the aesthetics of a story in people's minds.
Yann Martel
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Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
Yann Martel
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Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven says. Even on a symbolic lovel, that's creation in frenzy.
Yann Martel