[Life of Pi], p1 -- memorable quotes

"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" (6).

"...a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful" (6).

"But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it" (15).

"...in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge" (24).

 "Life will defend itself no matter how small it is" (38).

"Memory is an ocean and he bobs on its surface" (42).

"Progress is unstoppable. It is a drumbeat to which we all must march" (74).

 
On (animal) behavior

 "In a zoo, when an animal is not in its normal place in its regular posture at the usual hour, it means something" (17).

"In a zoo, we do for animals what we have done for ourselves with houses: we bring together in a small space what in the wild is spread out....A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely" (17-8).

 "Repetition is important in the training not only of animals but also of humans" (23).

 "I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both" (19).

 "Much hostile and aggressive behaviour among animals is the expression of social insecurity. The animal in front of you must know where it stands, whether above you or below you. Social rank is central to how it leads its life. Rank determines whom it can associate with and how; where and when it can eat; where it can rest; where it can drink; and so on. Until it knows its rank for certain, the animal lives a life of unbearable anarchy" (43-4).

"Hediger (1950) says, 'When two creatures meet, the one that is able to intimidate its opponent is recognized as socially superior, so that a social decision does not always depend on a fight; an encounter in some circumstances may be enough'" (44).

"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, most in need of their company, least likely to challenge them or be difficult" (45).

"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" (41).

"Animals that escape go from the known into the unknown -- and if there is one thing an animal hates above all else, it is the unknown" (41).

"It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names" (20).

On faith

"I said nothing. It wasn't for fear of angering Mr. Kumar. I was more afraid that in a few words thrown out he might destroy something that I loved. What if his words had the effect of polio on me? What a terrible disease that must be if it could kill God in a man" (28).

"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" (28).

"We all must 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" (28).

 "We are all born like Catholics, aren't we -- in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to God? After that meeting the matter ends for most of us. If there is a change, it is usually for the lesser rather than the greater; many people seem to lose God along life's way" (47).

"Brahman saguna is Brahman made manifest to our limited senses, Brahman expressed not only in gods but in humans, animals, trees, in a handful of earth, for everything has a trace of the divine in it. The truth of life is that Brahman is no different from atman, the spiritual force within us, what you might call the soul. 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" (48-9). .

"I am reminded of a story of Lord Krishna when he was a cowherd. Every night he invites the milkmaids to dance with him in the forest. They come and they dance. The night is dark, the fire in their midst roars and crackles, the beat of the music gets ever faster -- the girls dance and dance and dance with their sweet lord, who has made himself so abundant as to be in the arms of each and every girl. But the moment the girls become possessive, the moment each one imagines that Krishna is her partner alone, he vanishes. So it is that we should not be jealous with God" (49).

"...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" (50).

"If Hinduism flows placidly like the Ganges, then Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush hour. It is a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expresses itself in the instant. In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now" (57).

"'If you take two steps toward God,' he used to tell me, 'God runs to you!'" (61)

"I can well imagine an atheist'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" (64).

"There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless....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. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's that the self-righteous should rush" (70-1).