You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time.
Yann MartelRead
I'm looking at a dead event and trying to give it new life. In a sense, I'm a taxidermist.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the idea of revitalizing what is considered lifeless or obsolete through creativity and artistic expression.
Yann Martel compares his creative process to that of a taxidermist, suggesting that he aims to breathe new life into a seemingly dead event. This metaphor highlights the artist's role in transforming forgotten or overlooked concepts into something fresh and engaging, emphasizing the continual opportunity for renewal in art and life.
Themes
ArtCreativityRevivalTransformationRenewal
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation on artistic inspiration, I might say, 'As Yann Martel illustrates, we can breathe new life into the past, just like a taxidermist.'
More from Yann Martel
All quotes βCome 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.
Yann MartelRead
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.
Yann MartelRead
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.
Yann MartelRead
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.
Yann MartelRead
Art is a gift: you create and then you give away. How readers receive that gift is their business. If they hate it, thatβs 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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Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.
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