Quote

Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one's life away.

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Hope
Idle
Away
Immediate
Hands
Paying
Dream
Starts
Look
Survival
Looks
Close
Life
Hand
Tantamount
Attention
Dreaming

More quotes by Yann Martel

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It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.
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To me, the research is a way of exploring what it means to be alive.
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Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness--how can I not dwell on this brief, cramped view of things? This peephole is all I've got!
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If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?
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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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I have read that there are two fears that cannot be trained out of us: the startle reaction upon hearing an unexpected noise, and vertigo. I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approch of a known killer
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Why make dirty what is beautiful, spoil what is perfect? Love.
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I'm not a consumer. I hate buying clothes. I don't have a mobile. I just don't need things. I don't like things.
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What works in a story is very different than what works in cinema. For example, dialogue in books: If you translate it too faithfully, it sounds a little stilted, because we often don't speak the way we speak in novels. Oral language is much punchier, shorter sentences.
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Fanatics do not have faith - they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.
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I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality.
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To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
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The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book.
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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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I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.
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It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.
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How true is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true.
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There's no peace like the peace of an inner courtyard on a sunny day.
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...animals don't escape from somewhere but from something
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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