You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time.
Yann MartelRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the melancholic acceptance of a bleak fate and the companionship that can be found in shared despair.
Yann Martel's quote invites individuals to acknowledge their descent into 'oblivion', suggesting a journey towards an inevitable end that is both lonely and sorrowful. The mention of sitting together and offering a window seat implies a need for connection and comfort even in the face of despair, highlighting the bittersweet nature of human experience and the solace found in shared understanding of our darker moments.
Themes
OblivionSadnessCompanionshipDespairJourney
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about existentialism, you might quote Martel to underscore the acceptance of life's darker truths.
More from Yann Martel
All quotes →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.
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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.
Yann MartelRead
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