You can't quantify human pain the way you can measure out sugar. Death comes one individual at a time.
Yann MartelRead
It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our encounters with others can have a deep and lasting impact on our identities.
This quote by Yann Martel highlights the profound influence that our interactions with other people can have on our lives. The relationships we form and the experiences we share can lead to significant personal transformations that shape who we are, sometimes even altering how we perceive ourselves and the way we identify with our own names.
Themes
ChangeRelationshipsIdentityTransformationInfluence
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the importance of connections, this quote can emphasize how friendships shape our lives.
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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