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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
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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
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Novelist
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Something
Sloth
Gland
Shattered
Zoology
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Thyroid
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Glands
Calm
Soothe
Quiet
Introspective
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Functional
Demeanour
Self
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More quotes by Yann Martel
Life is an interpretation of a series of facts, and that interpretation is really what life is about. So the division between non-fiction and fiction has a certain logic, but it's a very limited one. And by and large, it isn't helpful.
Yann Martel
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.
Yann Martel
When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival.
Yann Martel
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
If you don't let technology help you, if you resist good ideas, you condemn yourself to dinosaurhood.
Yann Martel
Fanatics do not have faith - they have belief. With faith you let go. You trust. Whereas with belief you cling.
Yann Martel
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
It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire.
Yann Martel
All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.
Yann Martel
My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
Yann Martel
Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food is low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured.
Yann Martel
In art, something comes of nothing. Out of the thin air and the ether, you create a story. And that is intensely satisfying.
Yann Martel
Christianity is a religion in a rush.
Yann Martel
It's amazing how willpower can build walls.
Yann Martel
Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.
Yann Martel
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
The language of prose is very different than the language of cinema, so the movie has to successfully translate what was in the book.
Yann Martel
Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.
Yann Martel
Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team.
Yann Martel
The tennis challenger starts strong but soon loses confidence in his playing. The champion racks up the games. But in the final set, when the challenger has nothing left to lose, he becomes relaxed again, insouciant, daring. Suddenly he's playing like the devil and the champion must work hard to get those last points.
Yann Martel