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Animals In The Wild Lead Lives Of Compulsion And Necessity Within An Unforgiving Social Hierarchy In An Environment Where The Supply Of Fear Is High And The Supply Of Food Is Low And Where Territory Must Constantly Be Defended And Parasites Forever Endured.

-Yann Martel

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Animals In The Wild

Yann Martel

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Animals In The Wild Lead Lives Of Compulsion And Necessity Within An Unforgiving Social Hierarchy In An Environment Where The Supply Of Fear Is High And The Supply Of Food Is Low And Where Territory Must Constantly Be Defended And Parasites Forever Endured.

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Social Hierarchy

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Just As Music Is Noise That Makes Sense, A Painting Is Colour That Makes Sense, So A Story Is Life That Makes Sense.

A Zoo Is Not An Ideal Place For An Animal - Of Course The Best Place For A Chimp Is The Wilds Of Tanzania - But A Good Zoo Is A Decent, Acceptable Place. Animals Are Far More Flexible Than We Realize. If They Weren't, They Wouldn't Have Survived. But My Opinion About Zoos Came After Research. Initially I Had The Opinion That Most People Have, That They Are Jails.

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As Much As I Love Movies, It Would Be Presumptuous Of Me To Think That I Know How To Make One.

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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.

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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?

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.

For The First Time I Noticed - As I Would Notice Repeatedly During My Ordeal, Between One Throe Of Agony And The Next - That My Suffering Was Taking Place In A Grand Setting. I Saw My Suffering For What It Was, Finite And Insignificant, And I Was Still. My Suffering Did Not Fit Anywhere, I Realized. And I Could Accept This. It Was All Right.

Just As Art Brings You To Another Place, So Does Religion - And To Ask Questions Of Factuality Tends To Reduce Both. If You Say You Were Inspired By A Novel, That Implies That Your Book Is A Work Of Fiction.

If You Write Genre Fiction, You Follow The Rules, And You Have To Follow Them Because Readers Expect That.

Christianity Is A Religion In A Rush.

I Find That Movies Tend To Fix The Aesthetics Of A Story In People's Minds.

It Is A Vast Country, So That Inspires You. It's Also The Greatest Hotel On Earth: It Welcomes People From Everywhere. It's A Good Country To Write From Because In Many Ways Canada Is The World.

How Bitterly Glad I Am To See You. You Bring Joy And Pain In Equal Measure. Joy Because You Are With Me, But Pain Because It Won't Be For Long. What Do You Know About The Sea? Nothing. What Do I Know About The Sea? Nothing. Without A Driver This Bus Is Lost. Our Lives Are Over. Come Aboard If Your Destination Is Oblivion-- It Should Be Our Next Stop. We Can Sit Together. You Can Have The Window Seat, If You Want. But It's A Sad View. Oh Enough Of This Disembling. Let Me Say Plainly: I Love You, I Love You, I Love You. I Love You, I Love You, I Love You. Not The Spiders, Please.

I Spent More Hours Than I Can Count A Quiet Witness To The Highly Mannered, Manifold Expressions Of Life That Grace Our Planet. It Is Something So Bright, Loud, Weird And Delicate As To Stupefy The Senses.

My Suffering Left Me Sad And Gloomy.

My Zoology Thesis Was A Functional Analysis Of The Thyroid Gland Of The Three-toed Sloth. I Chose The Sloth Because Its Demeanour - Calm, Quiet And Introspective - Did Something To Soothe My Shattered Self.

To Choose Doubt As A Philosophy Of Life Is Akin To Choosing Immobility As A Means Of Transportation.

You May Not Believe In Life, But I Don't Believe In Death. Move On!

Music Is A Bird's Answer To The Noise And Heaviness Of Words. It Puts The Mind In A State Of Exhilarated Speechlessness.

People Move Because Of The Wear And Tear Of Anxiety. Because Of The Gnawing Feeling That No Matter How Hard They Work Their Efforts Will Yield Nothing, That What They Build Up In One Year Will Be Torn Down In One Day By Others. Because Of The Impression That The Future Is Blocked Up, That *they* Might Do All Right But Not Their Children. Because Of The Feeling That Nothing Will Change, That Happiness And Prosperity Are Possible Only Somewhere Else.

Misery Loves Company, And Madness Calls It Forth.

To Me, The Research Is A Way Of Exploring What It Means To Be Alive.

...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.

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 Unerring Ease. It Begins In Your Mind, Always. One Moment You Are Feeling Calm, Self-possessed, Happy. Then Fear, Disguised In The Garb Of Mild-mannered Doubt, Slips Into Your Mind Like A Spy.

My Greatest Wish — Other Than Salvation — Was To Have A Book. A Long Book With A Never-ending Story. One I Could Read Again And Again, With New Eyes And A Fresh Understanding Each Time.

Nothing Beats Reason For Keeping Tigers Away. But Be Excessively Reasonable And You Risk Throwing Out The Universe With The Bathwater.

The Paths To Liberation Are Numerous, But The Bank Along The Way Is Always The Same, The Bank Of Karma, Where The Liberation Account Of Each Of Us Is Credited Or Debited Depending On Our Actions.

And What Of My Extended Family-birds, Beasts, And Reptiles? They Too Have Drowned. Every Single Thing I Value In Life Has Been Destroyed. And I Am Allowed No Explanation? I Am To Suffer Hell Without Any Account From Heaven? In That Case, 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 If There's So Little Fish To Catch? (pg. 98)

Life On A Lifeboat Isn't Much Of A Life. It Is Like An End Game In Chess, A Game With A Few Pieces. The Elements Couldn't Be More Simple, Nor The Stakes Higher. Physically It Is Extraordinarily Arduous, And Morally It Is Killing...you Get Your Happiness Where You Can. You Reach A Point Where You're At The Bottom Of Hell, Yet You Have Your Arms Crossed And A Smile On Your Face, And You Feel You're The Luckiest Person On Earth. Why? Because At Your Feet You Have A Tiny Dead Fish

If There's Only One Nation In The Sky, Shouldn't All Passports Be Valid For It?

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.

The Moon Was A Sharply Defined Crescent And The Sky Was Perfectly Clear. The Stars Shone With Such Fierce, Contained Brilliance That It Seemed Absurd To Call The Night Dark.

But I Want To Pray To Allah. I Want To Be A Christian.

I Explore It Now In The Only Place Left For It, My Memory.

You Might Think I Lost All Hope At That Point. I Did. And As A Result I Perked Up And Felt Much Better.

First Wonder Goes Deepest; Wonder After That Fits In The Impression Made By The First.

The Reason Death Sticks So Closely To Life Isn’t Biological Necessity – It’s Envy.

If You Don't Let Technology Help You, If You Resist Good Ideas, You Condemn Yourself To Dinosaurhood.

I Love Cinema. I Think The Risk Of The Aesthetics Being Fixed Is Compensated By Other Advantages. Cinema Is Visually Powerful, It Is A Complete Experience, Reaches Different Audience. It's Something I Really Like. I Like Movies.

We Think We Live In A Global Village. We Don't. The World Is A Big And Beautiful And Incredibly Varied Place. It Can Only Be Known Locally, With Your Two Feet On The Ground. We Should Stick To Our Own Gardens, As Voltaire Said.

Quickly You Make Rash Decisions. You Dismiss Your Last Allies: Hope And Trust. There, You've Defeated Yourself. Fear, Which Is But An Impression, Has Triumphed Over You.

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.

I Chose The Name Pi Because It's An Irrational Number (one With No Discernable Pattern). Yet Scientists Use This Irrational Number To Come To A "rational" Understanding Of The Universe. To Me, Religion Is A Bit Like That, "irrational" Yet With It We Come Together We Come To A Sound Understanding Of The Universe.

Irrational Numbers

We Commonly Say In The Trade That The Most Dangerous Animal In A Zoo Is Man.

As For Hearing, The Sloth Is Not So Much Deaf As Uninterested In Sound.

How Long Does It Take For A Broken Spirit To Kill A Body That Has Food, Water And Shelter?

I Thought They Were Helping Me. I Was So Full Of Trust In Them That I Felt Grateful As They Carried Me In The Air. Only When They Threw Me Overboard Did I Begin To Have Doubts.

My Greatest Wish - Other Than Salvation - Was To Have A Book.

What Works In A Story Is Very Different Than What Works In Cinema. For Example, Dialogue In Books: If You Translate It Too Faithfully, It Sounds A Little Stilted, Because We Often Don't Speak The Way We Speak In Novels. Oral Language Is Much Punchier, Shorter Sentences.

Life Is An Interpretation Of A Series Of Facts, And That Interpretation Is Really What Life Is About. So The Division Between Non-fiction And Fiction Has A Certain Logic, But It's A Very Limited One. And By And Large, It Isn't Helpful.

I Can Only Tell My Story, What You Believe Is Up To You.

Why Make Dirty What Is Beautiful, Spoil What Is Perfect? Love.

War Subjects Itself To Transportation In A Way That We Find Acceptable.

I Suppose In The End, The Whole Of Life Becomes An Act Of Letting Go, But What Always Hurts The Most Is Not Taking A Moment To Say Goodbye.

If You Don't Have Dreams, How Do You Maneuver Reality? Where Do You Get The Ideas To Change Reality If Not From Dreams?

I Went About The Job In A Direct Way. I Took The Hatchet In Both My Hands And Vigorously Beat The Fish On The Head With The Hammerhead (i Still Didn’t Have The Stomach To Use The Sharp Edge). The Dorado Did The Most Extraordinary Thing As It Died: It Began To Flash All Kinds Of Colours In Rapid Succession. Blue, Green, Red, Gold, And Violet Flickered And Shimmered Neon-like On Its Surface As It Struggled. I Felt I Was Beating A Rainbow To Death.

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?

The Worst Pair Of Opposites Is Boredom And Terror. Sometimes Your Life Is A Pendulum Swing From One To The Other.

Truth Is A Nebulous Thing. There Are Certain, Definite Truths, But The Truth Of Our Lives Goes Far Beyond Facts.

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.

Life And Death Live And Die In Exactly The Same Spot, The Body. It Is From There That Both Babies And Cancers Are Born.

Christianity Stretches Back Through The Ages, But In Essence It Exists Only At One Time: Right Now.

These People Fail To Realize That It Is On The Inside That God Must Be Defended, Not On The Outside. They Should Direct Their Anger At Themselves. For Evil In The Open Is But Evil From Within That Has Been Let Out. The Main Battlefield For Good Is Not The Open Ground Of The Public Arena But The Small Clearing Of Each Heart.

Time Is An Illusion That Makes Us All Pant.

I Can't Live For More Than Four Years Outside Of Canada. I'm Canadian, So Ultimately That Is My Reference Point.

Jesus, Mary, Muhammad And Vishnu, How Good To See You Richard Parker!

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.

I Love Canada. Its A Wonderful Political Act Of Faith That Exists Atop A Breathtakingly Beautiful Land.

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.

We Were, Literally And Figuratively, In The Same Boat.

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?

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.

There's Nothing Like The Unimaginable To Make People Believe.

I Know What You Want. You Want A Story That Won't Surprise You. That Will Confirm What You Already Know. That Won't Make You See Higher Or Further Or Differently. You Want A Flat Story. An Immobile Story. You Want Dry, Yeastless Factuality.

I Meet A Number Of People As A Writer Of Fiction Who Say "oh, I Don't Read Much Fiction," As If The History Of The United States, Just As An Example, Isn't An Exercise In Storytelling And Myth-making.

We Believe What We See.’...what Do You Do When You’re In The Dark?

Most Of Us Get Our History Through Story.

Art Is The Suitcase Of History, Carrying The Essentials. Art Is The Life Buoy Of History. Art Is Seed, Art Is Memory, Art Is Vaccine.

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.

Atheists Are My Brothers And Sisters Of A Different Faith, And Every Word They Speak Speaks Of Faith. Like Me, They Go As Far As The Legs Of Reason Will Carry Them -- And Then They Leap.

The Language Of Prose Is Very Different Than The Language Of Cinema, So The Movie Has To Successfully Translate What Was In The Book.

I Did Not Count The Days Or The Weeks Or The Months. Time Is An Illusion That Only Makes Us Pant. I Survived Because I Forgot Even The Very Notion Of Time.

Don’t You Bully Me With Your Politeness!

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.

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.

These People Walk By A Widow Deformed By Leprosy...walk By Children Dressed In Rags Living In The Street, And They Think, 'business As Usual.' But If They Perceive A Slight Against God, It Is A Different Story. Their Faces Go Red, Their Chests Heave Mightily, They Sputter Angry Words. The Degree Of Their Indignation Is Astonishing. Their Resolve Is Frightening.

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.

Life On A Lifeboat Isn't Much Of A Life.

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Words Of Divine Consciousness: Moral Exaltation; Lasting Feelings Of Elevation, Elation, Joy; A Quickening Of The Moral Sense, Which Strikes One As More Important Than An Intellectual Understanding Of Things; An Alignment Of The Universe Along Moral Lines, Not Intellectual Ones; 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.

For Fear, Real Fear Such As Shakes You To Your Foundation, Such As You Feel When You Are Brought Face To Face With Your Mortal End, Nestles In Your Memory Like A Gangrene: It Seeks To Rot Everything, Even The Words With Which To Speak Of It. 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.

Repetition Is Important In The Training Not Only Of Animals But Also Of Humans.

Reality Is How We Interpret It. Imagination And Volition Play A Part In That Interpretation. Which Means That All Reality Is To Some Extent A Fiction.

It Is Pointless To Say That This Or That Night Was The Worst Of My Life. I Have So Many Bad Nights To Choose From That I've Made None The Champion.

Art Is A Gift: You Create And Then You Give Away. How Readers Receive That Gift Is Their Business. If They Hate It, That’s Their Response To It. Others Respond By Liking It. Either Way, That Is Their Interaction With The Book, Which Is No Longer Mine.

You Must Take Life The Way It Comes At You And Make The Best Of It.

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.

Just Beyond The Ticket Booth Father Had Painted On A Wall In Bright Red Letters The Question: Do You Know Which Is The Most Dangerous Animal In The Zoo? An Arrow Pointed To A Small Curtain. There Were So Many Eager, Curious Hands That Pulled At The Curtain That We Had To Replace It Regularly. Behind It Was A Mirror.

Fiction And Nonfiction Are Not So Easily Divided. Fiction May Not Be Real, But It's True; It Goes Beyond The Garland Of Facts To Get To Emotional And Psychological Truths.

I Love Canada...it Is A Great Country Much Too Cold For Good Sense, Inhabited By Compassionate, Intelligent People With Bad Hairdos.

Mockery Be Damned, My Urine Looked Delicious.

We Are All Born Like Catholics, Aren't We—in Limbo, Without Religion, Until Some Figure Introduces Us To God?

The Tennis Challenger Starts Strong But Soon Loses Confidence In His Playing. The Champion Racks Up The Games. But In The Final Set, When The Challenger Has Nothing Left To Lose, He Becomes Relaxed Again, Insouciant, Daring. Suddenly He's Playing Like The Devil And The Champion Must Work Hard To Get Those Last Points.

Sitting In An Office For Too Long Is Not Natural, Perhaps, So That's Why We Should Change It. I Didn't Say That Out-and-out Capitalism, Which Reduces Humanity To Dollar Figures, Is Natural.

The Presence Of God Is The Finest Of Rewards.

Presence Of God

For Evil In The Open Is But Evil From Within That Has Been Let Out.

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.

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.

It Was As Unbelievable As The Moon Catching Fire.

My Life Is Like A Memento Mori Painting From European Art: There Is Always A Grinning Skull At My Side To Remind Me Of The Folly Of Human Ambition.

Words Are Cold, Muddy Toads Trying To Understand Sprites Dancing In A Field-but They're All We Have.

The Animals Might Embody Certain Traits. We Think Of Tigers As Being Ferocious, Etc. But To My Mind, It Was The Other Way Around: The Humans Embodied Certain Animal Traits.

To Me, Religion Is About Our Dignity, Not Our Depravity.

If We, Citizens, Do Not Support Our Artists, Then We Sacrifice Our Imagination On The Altar Of Crude Reality And We End Up Believing In Nothing And Having Worthless Dreams.

I Am A Person Who Believes In Form, In The Harmony Of Order. Where We Can, We Must Give Things A Meaningful Shape.

Much Hostile And Aggressive Behaviour Among Animals Is The Expression Of Social Insecurity.

Christianity Is A Religion In A Rush. Look At The World Created In Seven Says. Even On A Symbolic Lovel, That's Creation In Frenzy.

Artists Invent Things As A Way Of Telling The Truth.

Telling The Truth

In Art, Something Comes Of Nothing. Out Of The Thin Air And The Ether, You Create A Story. And That Is Intensely Satisfying.

At Moments Of Wonder, It Is Easy To Avoid Small Thinking, To Entertain Thoughts That Span The Universe, That Capture Both Thunder And Tinkle, Thick And Thin, The Near And The Far.

When You've Suffered A Great Deal In Life, Each Additional Pain Is Both Unbearable And Trifling.

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.

But Once A Dead God, Always A Dead God, Even Resurrected. The Son Must Have The Taste Of Death Forever In His Mouth. The Trinity Must Be Tainted By It; There Must Be A Certain Stench At The Right Hand Of God The Father. The Horror Must Be Real. Why Would God Wish That Upon Himself? Why Not Leave Death To Mortals? Why Make Dirty What Is Beautiful, Spoil What Is Perfect? -- Love. That Was His Answer.

If You Are Pitched Into Misery, Remember That Your Days On This Earth Are Counted And You Might As Well Make The Best Of Those You Have Left.

The Lower You Are, The Higher Your Mind Will Want To Soar. It Was Natural That, Bereft And Desperate As I Was, In The Throes Of Unremitting Suffering. I Should Turn To God

It's Amazing How Willpower Can Build Walls.

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.

Was It The Forgetfulness Of Old Age Or Personal Incapacity That Made The Man Able To Say Please But Not Thank You?

Colonialism Is A Terrible Bane For A People Upon Whom It Is Imposed, But A Blessing For A Language. English's Drive To Exploit The New And The Alien, Its Zeal In Robbing Words From Other Languages, Its Incapacity To Feel Qualms Over The Matter, Its Museum-size Overabundance Of Vocabulary, It Shoulder-shrug Approach To Spelling, Its Don't-worry-be-happy Concern For Grammar-the Result Was A Language Whose Colour And Wealth Henry Loved.

I Think Art Comes From Some Sense Of Discomfort With The World, Some Sense Of Not Quite Fitting With It.

If You Take Two Steps Towards God,' He Used To Tell Me, 'god Runs To You!

Most People Take Who They Are, Naturally, As A Given, And They're Interested In The Sexual Other, But Not In Being The Sexual Other. Most Men Are Interested In Women - Whether Sexually Or Not Is Not The Question - But They Don't Necessarily Want To Be A Woman.

Words Are Much Better At Relating Emotions And Thoughts.

A House Is A Compressed Territory Where Our Basic Needs Can Be Fulfilled Close By And Safely.

Don’t Worry About Being Good…. Aspire To Be Authentic.

If You Stumble Over Mere Believability, What Are You Living For? Love Is Hard To Believe, Ask Any Lover. Life Is Hard To Believe, Ask Any Scientist. God Is Hard To Believe, Ask Any Believer. What Is Your Problem With Hard To Believe? Reason Is Excellent For Getting Food, Clothing And Shelter. Reason Is The Very Best Tool Kit. Nothing Beats Reason For Keeping Tigers Away. But Be Excessively Reasonable And You Risk Throwing Out The Universe With The Bathwater

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.

The Idea Of A Flip Book Still Really Appeals To Me. That Idea Of Fiction And Non-fiction.

Even When God Seemed To Have Abandoned Me, He Was Watching. Even When He Seemed Indifferent To My Suffering, He Was Watching. And When I Was Beyond All Hope Of Saving, He Gave Me Rest. Then He Gave Me A Sign To Continue My Journey.

It Is Life's Only True Opponent. Only Fear Can Defeat Life.

That's What Fiction Is About, Isn't It, The Selective Transforming Of Reality? The Twisting Of It To Bring Out Its Essence?

How True Is That Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention, How Very True.

I Have Nothing To Say Of My Working Life, Only That A Tie Is A Noose, And Inverted Though It Is, It Will Hang A Man Nonetheless If He's Not Careful.

God Is Universal," Spluttered The Priest. The Imam Nodded Strong Approval. "there Is Only One God." "and With Their One God Muslims Are Always Causing Troubles And Provoking Riots. The Proof Of How Bad Islam Is, Is How Uncivilized Muslims Are,: Pronounced The Pandit. "says The Slave-driver Of The Cast System," Huffed The Imam. "hindus Enslave People And Worship Dressed-up Dolls." "they Are Golden Calf Lovers. They Kneel Before The Cows," The Priest Chimed In. "while Christians Kneel Before A White Man! They Are Flunkies Of A Foreign God. They Are Nightmare Of All Nonwhite People.

There's No Peace Like The Peace Of An Inner Courtyard On A Sunny Day.

I Preferred To Set Off And Perish In Search Of My Own Kind Than To Live A Lonely Half-life Of Physical Comfort And Spiritual Death On This Murderous Island.

Life Is A Peephole, A Single Tiny Entry Onto A Vastness--how Can I Not Dwell On This Brief, Cramped View Of Things? This Peephole Is All I've Got!

A Movie Will Do In One Second, With One Image, What It Will Take A Novelist At Least A Page To Describe.

Any Writer Will Be Happy And Good Only If They Know What They're Doing And Why They're Doing It.

Fanatics Do Not Have Faith - They Have Belief. With Faith You Let Go. You Trust. Whereas With Belief You Cling.

If You Stumble At Mere Believability, What Are You Living For? Isn't Love Hard To Believe?

Life Of Pi Book

If You Stumble About Believability, What Are You Living For? Love Is Hard To Believe, Ask Any Lover. Life Is Hard To Believe, Ask Any Scientist. God Is Hard To Believe, Ask Any Believer. What Is Your Problem With Hard To Believe?

People Always Seek To Compare. They Can Take The New, But Only If It Is Somehow Connected To The Familiar. We Need That In Our Lives, The Mix Of The New And The Old. But Of Course I'm Flattered About The Comparison With Old Man And The Sea. Hemingway Is A Great Writer.

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.

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.

I Have A Story That Will Make You Believe In God.

Life On A Lifeboat Isn’t Much Of A Life. It Is Like An End Game In Chess, A Game With Few Pieces. The Elements Couldn’t Be More Simple, Nor The Stakes Higher.

Japanese-owned Cargo Ship Tsimtsum, Flying Panamanian Flag, Sank July 2nd, 1977, In Pacific, Four Days Out Of Manila. Am In Lifeboat. Pi Patel My Name. Have Some Food, Some Water, But Bengal Tiger A Serious Problem. Please Advise Family In Winnepeg, Canada. Any Help Very Much Appreciated. Thank You.

Science Can Only Take You So Far And Then You Have To Leap

Oncoming Death Is Terrible Enough, But Worse Still Is Oncoming Death With Time To Spare, Time In Which All The Happiness That Was Yours And All The Happiness That Might Have Been Yours Becomes Clear To You. You See With Utter Lucidity All That You Are Losing.

[the Taxidermist Is] A Historian, Dealing With An Animal's Past; The Zookeeper Is A Politician, Dealing With An Animal's Present; And Everyone Else Is A Citizen Who Must Decide On That Animal's Future (...) The Indifference Of The Many, Combined With The Active Hatred Of The Few, Has Sealed The Fate Of Animals.

My Gratitude To Him Is As Boundless As The Pacific Ocean.

Progress Is Unstoppable. It Is A Drumbeat To Which We Must All March. Technology Helps And Good Ideas Spread – These Are Two Lows Of Nature. If You Don’t Let Technology Help You, If You Resist Good Ideas, You Condemn Yourself To Dinosaurhood! I Am Utterly Convinced Of This.

It's Important In Life To Conclude Things Properly. Only Then Can You Let Go.

Life Of Pi Book

Dare I Say I Miss Him? I Do. I Miss Him. I Still See Him In My Dreams. They Are Nightmares Mostly, But Nightmares Tinged With Love. Such Is The Strangeness Of The Human Heart.

It Is Simple And Brutal: A Person Can Get Used To Anything, Even To Killing.

Despair Was A Heavy Blackness That Let No Light In Or Out. It Was A Hell Beyond Expression. I Thank God It Always Passed.

The Three Religions Because I Wanted To Discuss Faith, Not Organized Religion, So Wanted To Relativize Organized Religion By Having Pi Practice Three. I Would Have Like Pi To Be A Jew, Too, To Practice Judaism, But There Are Two Religions That Are Explicitly Incompatible: Christianity And Judaism. Where One Begins, The Other Ends, According To Christians, And Where One Endures, The Other Strays, According To Jews.

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.

I Couldn't Get Him Out Of My Head. Still Can't. I Spent Three Solid Days Thinking About Him. The More He Bothered Me, The Less I Coul Forget Him. And The More I Learned About Him, The Less I Wanted To Leave Him.

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.

Devotion To God

If You Took The City Of Tokyo And Turned It Upside Down And Shook It You Would Be Amazed At The Animals That Fall Out: Badgers, Wolves, Boa Constrictors, Crocodiles, Ostriches, Baboons, Capybaras, Wild Boars, Leopards, Manatees, Ruminants, In Untold Numbers. There Is No Doubt In My Mind That That Feral Giraffes And Feral Hippos Have Been Living In Tokyo For Generations Without Seeing A Soul.

My Next Book - Each One While I'm Working On It - Dances In My Mind And Thrills Me At Every Turn. If It Didn't, Why Would I Write It?

I Cannot Think Of A Better Way To Spread The Faith. No Thundering From A Pulpit, No Condemnation From Bad Churches, No Peer Pressure, Just A Book Of Scripture Quietly Waiting To Say Hello, As Gentle And Powerful As A Little Girl's Kiss On Your Cheek.

What A Terrible Thing It Is To Botch A Farewell.

Life Of Pi Book

I Had To Stop Hoping So Much That A Ship Would Rescue Me. I Should Not Count On Outside Help. Survival Had To Start With Me. In My Experience, A Castaway’s Worst Mistake Is To Hope Too Much And To Do Too Little. 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.

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.

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.

How Does One Say In The Jargon Of Musicology That My Sould Was Pulled Out Of Me And Thrown Up In The Air, To Be Tossed About By The Music. How Does One Say That I Breathed, That I Existed, In Harmony With The Ups And Downs Of Those Notes. What Kind Of Notes Both Elevate And Cast Down, Exalt And Crush?

Sometimes I Got My Majors Mixed Up. A Number Of My Fellow Religious-studies Students - Muddled Agnostics Who Didn't Know Which Way Was Up, Who Were In The Thrall Of Reason, That Fool's Gold For The Bright - Reminded Me Of The Three-toed Sloth; And The Three-toed Sloth, Such A Beautiful Example Of The Miracle Of Life, Reminded Me Of God.

...for Everything Has A Trace Of The Divine In It.

Can There Be Any Happiness Greater Than The Happiness Of Salvation?

Everything Was Screaming: The Sea, The Wind, My Heart.

I Can Well Imagine An Athiest's Last Words: "white, White! L-l-love! My God!" - And The Deathbed Leap Of Faith. Whereas The Agnostic, If He Stays True To His Reasonable Self, If He Stays Beholden To Dry, Yeastless Factuality, Might Try To Explain The Warm Light Bathing Him By Saying "possibly A F-f-failing Oxygenation Of The B-b-brain," And, To The Very End, Lack Imagination And Miss The Better Story.

So Tell Me, Since It Makes No Factual Difference To You And You Can't Prove The Question Either Way, Which Story Do You Prefer? Which Is The Better Story, The Story With Animals Or The Story Without Animals?' Mr. Okamoto: 'that's An Interesting Question?' Mr. Chiba: 'the Story With Animals.' Mr. Okamoto: 'yes. The Story With Animals Is The Better Story.' Pi Patel: 'thank You. And So It Goes With God.

I Know Zoos Are No Longer In People's Good Graces. Religion Faces The Same Problem. Certain Illusions About Freedom Plague Them Both.

High Calls Low And Low Calls High. I Tell You, If You Were In Such Dire Straits As I Was, You Too Would Elevate Your Thoughts. The Lower You Are, The Higher Your Mind Will Want To Soar.

Isn't Telling About Something-using Words, English Or Japanese-already Something Of An Invention? Isn't Just Looking Upon This World Already Something Of An Invention?

I've Never Forgotten Him. Dare I Say I Miss Him? I Do. I Miss Him. I Still See Him In My Dreams. They Are Nightmares Mostly, But Nightmares Tinged With Love. Such Is The Strangeness Of The Human Heart. I Still Cannot Understand How He Could Abandon Me So Unceremoniously, Without Any Sort Of Goodbye, Without Looking Back Even Once. The Pain Is Like An Axe That Chops My Heart.

A Great Literary Work Can Be Completely, Completely Unpredictable. Which Can Sometimes Make Them Very Hard To Read, But It Gives Them A Great Originality.

I Go To Mass Every Sunday, But Love Going To Mosques Too. Muslims Pray In A Beautiful Way.

The Individual Soul Touches Upon The World Soul Like A Well Reaches For The Water Table. That Which Sustains The Universe Beyond Thought And Language, And That Which Is At The Core Of Us And Struggles For Expression, Is The Same Thing. The Finite Within The Infinite, The Infinite Within The Finite.

If You Went To A Home, Kicked Down The Front Door, Chased The People Who Lived There Out Into The Street And Said, Go! You Are Free! Free As A Bird! Go! Go! - Do You Think They Would Shout And Dance For Joy? They Wouldn't. Birds Are Not Free. The People You've Just Evicted Would Sputter, With What Right Do You Throw Us Out? This Is Our Home. We Own It. We Have Lived Here For Years. We're Calling The Police, You Scoundrel.

We Always See The Holocaust In Terms Of Black-and-white Images, Barking Germans, Cowering Jews. We Know Very Well-known Fixed Places Like Auschwitz, Birkenau, Treblinka, And Beltzec. Instead, War Can Live In A Couple Having A Spat, When We Say, "that Was A Real War." We Very Rarely Have The Holocaust Live In The Terms Of Today. And I Think That's A Problem, Because It Becomes Ancient History.

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