Quote

Zoo is an artificial territory, an approximation. Civilization is our natural territory.

Yann Martel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Yann Martel
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: June 25
Author
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Writer
Artificial
Territory
Civilization
Natural
Approximation
Zoos

More quotes by Yann Martel

Image
Books, like people, can't be reduced to the cost of the materials with which they were made. Books, like people, become unique and precious once you get to know them.
Yann Martel
Image
Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.
Yann Martel
Image
Dawn came and matters were worse for it. Because now, emerging from the darkness, I could see, what before I had only felt, the great curtains of rain crashing down on me from towering heights and the waves that threw a path over me and trod me underfoot one after another.
Yann Martel
Image
How long does it take for a broken spirit to kill a body that has food, water and shelter?
Yann Martel
Image
There's no peace like the peace of an inner courtyard on a sunny day.
Yann Martel
Image
There is nothing more satisfying than having a sentence fall into place in a way you feel is right, and then adding another one and then another one. It's extraordinarily satisfying.
Yann Martel
Image
My alarm clock during my childhood was a pride of lions.
Yann Martel
Image
You bring joy and pain in equal measure. Joy because you are with me, but pain because it wont be for long.
Yann Martel
Image
A realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably.
Yann Martel
Image
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
Image
Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed.
Yann Martel
Image
Life on a lifeboat isn't much of a life.
Yann Martel
Image
...animals don't escape from somewhere but from something
Yann Martel
Image
If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe?
Yann Martel
Image
It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.
Yann Martel
Image
Gloom is but a shadow of a cloud passing by
Yann Martel
Image
Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.
Yann Martel
Image
I can't live for more than four years outside of Canada. I'm Canadian, so ultimately that is my reference point.
Yann Martel
Image
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
Image
I turned around, stepped over the Zebra and threw myself overboard.
Yann Martel