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How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer, but art is very self-referential, whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Religion
Backgrounds
Evil
Bounds
Art
Claims
Live
Answer
Referential
Human
Certainly
Traditionally
Humans
Beyond
Secular
Self
Answers
Background
Existence
Whereas

More quotes by 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.
Yann Martel
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Just do it. Get it down on the page. Work hard. And then let go. Ask yourself why you want to write. You have to be clear about that.
Yann Martel
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If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.
Yann Martel
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Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. They prove to be the ones most faithful to them…it is a fact commonly known in the trade.
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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The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.
Yann Martel
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I think art comes from some sense of discomfort with the world, some sense of not quite fitting with it.
Yann Martel
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What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell.
Yann Martel
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I meet a number of people as a writer of fiction who say Oh, I don't read much fiction, as if the history of the United States, just as an example, isn't an exercise in storytelling and myth-making.
Yann Martel
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My greatest wish - other than salvation - was to have a book.
Yann Martel
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There's nothing like the unimaginable to make people believe.
Yann Martel
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Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
Yann Martel
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First wonder goes deepest wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first.
Yann Martel
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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
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It is a vast country, so that inspires you. It's also the greatest hotel on earth: It welcomes people from everywhere. It's a good country to write from because in many ways Canada is the world.
Yann Martel
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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.
Yann Martel
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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.
Yann Martel
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Religion? Mr Kumar grinned broadly. I don't believe in religion. Religion is darkness.
Yann Martel
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Isn't telling about something-using words, English or Japanese-already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?
Yann Martel
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Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims.
Yann Martel