You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time.
Yann MartelRead
I like using animals because they help suspend my reader's disbelief. We have certain ideas about dentists. We don't have many ideas about rhinoceros dentists.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Using animals in storytelling can create a sense of wonder and challenge preconceived notions.
Yann Martel's quote reflects on the creative power of employing unconventional characters, such as animals, to engage readers' imaginations and encourage them to suspend their disbelief. By introducing unexpected elements, like a rhinoceros dentist, the author can provoke curiosity and invite readers to explore new perspectives that challenge their predefined ideas about reality.
Themes
AnimalsStorytellingImaginationCreativityUnconventional
In practice
Example use cases
In a children's book club, when discussing imaginative storytelling.
More from Yann Martel
All quotes →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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
Yann MartelRead
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