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If you write genre fiction, you follow the rules, and you have to follow them because readers expect that.

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
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Fiction
Write
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More quotes by Yann Martel

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Sometimes I got my majors mixed up. A number of my fellow religious-studies students - muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, who were in the thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright - reminded me of the three-toed sloth and the three-toed sloth, such a beautiful example of the miracle of life, reminded me of God.
Yann Martel
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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
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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 turned around, stepped over the Zebra and threw myself overboard.
Yann Martel
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My next book - each one while I'm working on it - dances in my mind and thrills me at every turn. If it didn't, why would I write it?
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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My greatest wish — other than salvation — was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time.
Yann Martel
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The planet is populated by human beings, of which there are only two sexes, and the role of the writer is to explore otherness, other realities. So the idea of a man exploring what it's like to be a woman doesn't strike me as being that wild or crazy an idea.
Yann Martel
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Truth is a nebulous thing. There are certain, definite truths, but the truth of our lives goes far beyond facts.
Yann Martel
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The moon was a sharply defined crescent and the sky was perfectly clear. The stars shone with such fierce, contained brilliance that it seemed absurd to call the night dark.
Yann Martel
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Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans.
Yann Martel
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I chose the name Pi because it's an irrational number (one with no discernable pattern). Yet scientists use this irrational number to come to a rational understanding of the universe. To me, religion is a bit like that, irrational yet with it we come together we come to a sound understanding of the universe.
Yann Martel
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Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life.
Yann Martel
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The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.
Yann Martel
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The animals might embody certain traits. We think of tigers as being ferocious, etc. But to my mind, it was the other way around: the humans embodied certain animal traits.
Yann Martel
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War subjects itself to transportation in a way that we find acceptable.
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.
Yann Martel
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In a movie, you need good actors, whereas in a book, you don't, unless you have a really bad imagination. In a book, your imagination will do the acting for you. Also, the process of revelation is often different. Tension is achieved in a different way.
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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Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.
Yann Martel