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Work, work, work, but what mark do we leave, what point do we make? People who are too beholden to work become like erasers: as things move forward, they leave in their wake no trace of themselves.

Yann Martel

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Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Work
Wake
Make
Mark
Forward
Things
Move
Like
Leave
People
Point
Beholden
Moving
Erasers
Become
Trace

More quotes by Yann Martel

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There's no peace like the peace of an inner courtyard on a sunny day.
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It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.
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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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Don’t worry about being good…. Aspire to be authentic.
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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.
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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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Religion is just an alternate way of reading reality - you read material reality, and then you add on an extra layer of religiosity that deepens that understanding of reality. Some countries have lost that capacity, or dismissed it or marginalized it.
Yann Martel
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...animals don't escape from somewhere but from something
Yann Martel
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Blessed be shock. Blessed be the part of us that protects us from too much pain and sorrow. At the heart of life is a fusebox.
Yann Martel
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I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart.
Yann Martel
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I wept like a child. It was not because I was overcome at having survived my ordeal, though I was. Nor was it the presence of my brothers and sisters, though that too was very moving. I was weeping because ....fill in the blank with whatever/whoever helped you survive... had left me so unceremoniously.
Yann Martel
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...for everything has a trace of the divine in it.
Yann Martel
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Why do people move? What makes them uproot and leave everything they've known for a great unknown beyond the horizon? ... The answer is the same the world over: people move in the hope of a better life.
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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I'm not a consumer. I hate buying clothes. I don't have a mobile. I just don't need things. I don't like things.
Yann Martel
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It's amazing how willpower can build walls.
Yann Martel
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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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Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch?
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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How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
Yann Martel