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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

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Direct
Unexpected
Vertigo
Known
Fears
Rapid
Upon
Reactions
Rapids
Read
Add
Killer
Two
Noise
Killers
Cannot
Third
Trained
Would
Thirds
Reaction
Like
Hearing
Wit
Startle

More quotes by Yann Martel

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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.
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When the course of experience made me see that there is no saviour and no special grace, no remission beyond the human, that pain is to be endured and fades, if it fades, only with time, then God became nothing to me but a dyslexic dog, with neither bark nor bite.
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Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.
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I have a story that will make you believe in God.
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Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?
Yann Martel
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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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I find that movies tend to fix the aesthetics of a story in people's minds.
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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.
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War subjects itself to transportation in a way that we find acceptable.
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India is a place where all stories are possible. You forget that the imagination can take hold of anything and contemplate it and love it and describe it.
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Don’t you bully me with your politeness!
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I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it.
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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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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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I turned around, stepped over the Zebra and threw myself overboard.
Yann Martel
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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.
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We are all born like Catholics, aren't we—in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God?
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Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation. Which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction.
Yann Martel
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Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love—but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.
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It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go.
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