Yann Martel
"...if you fall into a lion's pit, the reason the lion will tear you to pieces is not because it's hungry-be assured, zoo animals are amply fed-or because it's bloodthirsty, but because you've invaded it's territory."
34 Quotes
"...if you fall into a lion's pit, the reason the lion will tear you to pieces is not because it's hungry-be assured, zoo animals are amply fed-or because it's bloodthirsty, but because you've invaded it's territory."
"...إذا سقطت في عرين أسد، فإن سبب تمزيق الأسد إياك إرباً ليس لأنه جائع – كن على ثقة، فحيوانات الحدائق تُغذى جيداً – ولا لأنه متعطش للدماء، بل لأنك غزوتَ حوزته."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"Socially inferior animals are the ones that make the most strenuous, resourceful efforts to get to know their keepers. They prove to be the ones most faithful to them…it is a fact commonly known in the trade."
"الحيوانات الأدنى منزلة اجتماعية هي التي تبذل أشق الجهود وأكثرها حيلة لمعرفة أصحابها. وهي التي تثبت لهم أشد الولاء… حقيقة معروفة في المهنة."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"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."
"إن الطبيعة لَقادرةٌ على تقديم عرضٍ مُذهل. فالمسرحُ فسيحٌ، والإضاءةُ دراميةٌ، والممثلون الثانويون لا يُحصَون، وميزانيةُ المؤثراتِ الخاصةِ غيرُ محدودةٍ على الإطلاق."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science."
"العلماء قوم ودودون، ملحدون، دؤوبون، يحتسون الجعة، وتستغرق عقولهم الجنس والشطرنج والبيسبول حين لا تكون منشغلة بالعلم."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”"
"لا بد لي من كلمة عن الخوف. إنه الخصم الأوحد للحياة، والخوف وحده من يقوى على دحرها. إنه خصم داهية، غادر، وكم خبرته! لا يعرف حياءً، ولا يلتزم بقانون أو عرف، ولا يبدي رحمة. يتسلل إلى أوهن مواطنك، ويعثر عليها بيسر مقلق. منشأه دائماً في العقل... لذا، عليك أن تجاهد جاهداً لتفصح عنه، وأن تسلط عليه نور الكلمات. لأنك إن لم تفعل، إن تحول خوفك إلى ظلام أبكم تتجنبه، وربما حتى تنجح في نسيانه، فإنك بذلك تفتح الباب أمام هجمات أخرى من الخوف، إذ لم تخض معركة حقيقية قط ضد الخصم الذي قهرك."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer, but art is very self-referential, whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence."
"كيف تعيش مع الشر؟ الفن تقليدياً – وبالتأكيد في خلفيتي العلمانية – هو الجواب، لكن الفن شديد الانغلاق على ذاته، بينما الدين يدّعي تجاوز حدود الوجود البشري."
Yann Martel
"And so, when she heard if Hare Krishnas, she didn't hear right. She heard "Hairless Christians", and that is what they were to her for many years. When I corrected her, I told her in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims."
Yann Martel
"I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"“To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing--I'm sorry, I would rather not go on.”"
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"You might think I lost all hope at that point. I did. And as a result I perked up and felt much better."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing--I'm sorry, I would rather not go on."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity - it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud ."
Yann Martel
"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you."
Yann Martel
Life of Pi
"I did not grasp all these details - and many more - right away. They came to my notice with time and as a result of necessity. I would be in the direst of dire straits, facing a bleak future, when some small thing, some detail, would transform itself and appear in my mind in a new light. It would no longer be the small thing it was before, but the most important thing in the world, the thing that would save my life. This happened time and again. How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true."
Yann Martel
"But it was hard, oh, it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love--but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation, and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up."
Yann Martel
"I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."
Yann Martel
"In my youth, it was my good luck to have a few good teachers, men and women, who came into my head and lit a match."
Yann Martel
"The indifference of the many, combined with the active hatred of the few, has sealed the fate of animals."
Yann Martel
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