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It was a huge zoo, spread over numberless acres, big enough to require a train to explore it, though it seemed to get smaler as I grew older, train included. Now it's so small it fits in my head.

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Enough
Older
Acres
Train
Included
Grew
Fits
Huge
Explore
Head
Require
Small
Spread
Though
Seemed
Numberless
Bigs
Fit
Zoos

More quotes by Yann Martel

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There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God... These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside.
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How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
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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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Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.
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First wonder goes deepest wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.
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Artists invent things as a way of telling the truth.
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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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I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.
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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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Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.
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Jesus, Mary, Muhammad and Vishnu, how good to see you Richard Parker!
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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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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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Work, work, work, but what mark do we leave, what point do we make? People who are too beholden to work become like erasers: as things move forward, they leave in their wake no trace of themselves.
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.
Yann Martel
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We think we live in a global village. We don't. The world is a big and beautiful and incredibly varied place. It can only be known locally, with your two feet on the ground. We should stick to our own gardens, as Voltaire said.
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My ears were full. Nothing more, not one more sound, could push into them and be registered.
Yann Martel
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Gloom is but a shadow of a cloud passing by
Yann Martel
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[The taxidermist is] a historian, dealing with an animal's past the zookeeper is a politician, dealing with an animal's present and everyone else is a citizen who must decide on that animal's future (...) The indifference of the many, combined with the active hatred of the few, has sealed the fate of animals.
Yann Martel