I became aware of a voice inside my head. [...] It was only later that I realized that this voice was my own thinking, that this moment of anguish was my first inkling that I was a ceaseless monologue trapped within myself. - Yann Martel
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. - Yann Martel
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity- its envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. - Yann Martel
If literature does one thing, it makes you more empathetic by making you live other lives and feel the pain of others. Ideologues don't feel the pain of others because they haven't imaginatively got under their skins. - Yann Martel
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. - 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
He seems to be attracting religions the way a dog attracts fleas. - Yann Martel
I never had problems with my fellow scientists. 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. - Yann Martel
Doesn't the telling of something always become a story? - Yann Martel
Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? - Yann Martel
To me, religion is about our dignity, not our depravity. - Yann Martel