Yann Martel

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. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.

Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression.

The obsession with putting ourselves at the centre of everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists.

I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen.

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous possessive love that grabs at what it can.

To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

Come aboard if your destination is oblivion - it should be our next stop.

Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious.

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.

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.

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.

What is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities - the getting of food, clothing and shelter? 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 of there's so little fish to catch?

My developing sense was that the foundation of a story is an emotional foundation. If a story does not work emotionally, it does not work at all.

If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?

You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better.

A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely.

Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?

Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.