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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
Known
Fears
Rapid
Upon
Reactions
Rapids
Read
Add
Killer
Two
Noise
Killers
Cannot
Third
Trained
Would
Thirds
Reaction
Like
Hearing
Wit
Startle
Direct
Unexpected
Vertigo

More quotes by 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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Christianity is a religion in a rush.
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.
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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.
Yann Martel
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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.
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.
Yann Martel
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A movie tends to box you in, at least as far as the aesthetics. You have an incredibly kinetic experience, which is the joy of cinema.
Yann Martel
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I ask you, is it the fig tree's fault that it's not the season for figs? What kind of thing is that to do to an innocent tree, wither it instantly?
Yann Martel
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I am not a particularly natural writer. I am not a person who can write in paragraphs the way some writers do. For me, it's sentence by sentence, sometimes word-by-word. And I revise constantly. It's a very laborious process, but I love doing it.
Yann Martel
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If you take two steps towards God,' he used to tell me, 'God runs to you!
Yann Martel
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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.
Yann Martel
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It's amazing how willpower can build walls.
Yann Martel
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Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body. It is from there that both babies and cancers are born.
Yann Martel
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Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.
Yann Martel
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I love Canada. Its a wonderful political act of faith that exists atop a breathtakingly beautiful land.
Yann Martel
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These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.
Yann Martel
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A movie will do in one second, with one image, what it will take a novelist at least a page to describe.
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.
Yann Martel
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Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
Yann Martel
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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.
Yann Martel