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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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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Twisting
Selective
Transforming
Essence
Fiction
Bring
Reality

More quotes by Yann Martel

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No one dies of nausea, but it can seriously sap the will to live.
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I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart.
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Music is a bird's answer to the noise and heaviness of words. It puts the mind in a state of exhilarated speechlessness.
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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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Most people take who they are, naturally, as a given, and they're interested in the sexual other, but not in being the sexual other. Most men are interested in women - whether sexually or not is not the question - but they don't necessarily want to be a woman.
Yann Martel
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The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.
Yann Martel
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The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving.
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Just do it. Get it down on the page. Work hard. And then let go. Ask yourself why you want to write. You have to be clear about that.
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If you don't let technology help you, if you resist good ideas, you condemn yourself to dinosaurhood.
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I think art comes from some sense of discomfort with the world, some sense of not quite fitting with it.
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My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour - calm, quiet and introspective - did something to soothe my shattered self.
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A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely.
Yann Martel
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The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.
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
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It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.
Yann Martel
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There's no peace like the peace of an inner courtyard on a sunny day.
Yann Martel
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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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I can't live for more than four years outside of Canada. I'm Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
Yann Martel
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Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.
Yann Martel
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Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.
Yann Martel