1
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
2
Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?Yann Martel
3
To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?Yann Martel
4
Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.Yann Martel
5
Henry had written a novel because there was a hole in him that needed filling, a question that needed answering, a patch of canvas that needed painting–that blend of anxiety, curiosity and joy that is at the origin of art–and he had filled the hole, answered the question, splashed colour on the canvas, all done for himself, because he had to. Then complete strangers told him that his book had filled a hole in them, had answered a question, had brought colour to their lives. The comfort of strangers, be it a smile, a pat on the shoulder or a word of praise, is truly a comfort.Yann Martel
6
Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is color that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.Yann Martel
7
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.Yann Martel
8
As for fame, fame felt like nothing. Fame was not a sensation like love or hunger or loneliness, welling from within and invisible to the outside eye. It was rather entirely external, coming from the minds of others. It existed in the way people looked at him or behaved towards him. In that, being famous was no different from being gay, or Jewish, or from a visible minority: you are who you are, and then people project onto you some notion they have.Yann Martel
9
...he found it where he should have looked first, on the Internet, which is a net indeed, one that can be cast further than the eye can see and be retrieved no matter how heavy the hall, its magical mesh never breaking under the strain but always bringing in the most amazing catch.Yann Martel
10
Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body.Yann Martel