Yann Martel Quotes

If you want to learn the true nature of a child you have to watch how she plays. If you want to learn the true nature of an adult you have to watch how she does her job.

Obviously you have to have talent in order to play so you can't overlook that, but we won't overlook the character issue when it comes to talent because if they have talent and they don't have character, it's going to be very difficult to coach that person.

No operas, plays, or concerts are allowed in London on Sundays, and even cards are so expressly forbidden that none but persons of quality, and those we call the genteel, play on that day; the rest of the nation go either to church, to the tavern, or to see their mistresses.

[The Royal Society] is quite simply the voice of science in Britain. It is intellectually rigorous, not afraid to be outspoken on controversial issues such as climate change, but it is not aggressively secular either, insisting on a single view of the world. In fact, there are plenty of eminent scientists - Robert Winston, for instance - who are also men of faith.

I have always thought it curious that, while most scientists claim to eschew religion, it actually dominates their thoughts more than it does the clergy.

I think that the issues we have with science these days are not restricted to what's happening with respect to religion. There are a lot of very religious scientists around.

Race does not come into it. It is pure religion and culture. Something about the cultural tradition of Jews is way, way more sympathetic to science and learning and intellectual pursuits than Islam. That would have been a fair comparison.

Actors tend to be quite good at getting on with people. If you’re an arsehole, people don’t want to work with you. You won’t get hired Well, there are a few arseholes.

There may be a conflict between softminded religionists and toughminded scientists, but not between science and religion.

I don't think dressing has anything to do with numbers. I know people of 30 who act like they're 97, and I have a few old-bag friends who are very hip.

Can't you... I don't. Find a hobby or something?" "Being charming is my hobby.

It's a lazy Saturday afternoon, there's a couple lying naked in bed reading Encyclopediea Brittannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more 'numinous' than the Ressurection. Do they know how to have a good time, or don't they?

If you are referring to the characters of The Room, each character has a different personality which you can see very clearly on the screen. If you are referring to the actors, they give me different emotions, personality which represents human behavior.

Without leisure there can be neither art nor science nor fine conversation, nor any ceremonious performance of the offices of love and friendship.

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

It is at least scientifically respectable to postulate that at the centre of a black hole the laws of nature no longer apply. Since most scientists are just a bit religious and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole while his religious intellect believes in them outside it.

Science makes no claim to infallibility; it leaves that claim to be made by theologians.

Gould carried the art of bending over backward to positively supine lengths. Why shouldn't we comment on God, as scientists? ... A universe with a creative superintendent would be a very different kind of universe from one without. Why is that not a scientific matter?

You ask people, do you pray to [a person or] God. If you say yes to that, you're religious by, presumably, anybody's standards of your conduct. And it's the yes to that question that applies to 40% of scientists. So, there're plenty of atheists who are scientists or not scientists. There maybe a conflict but many people in this country coexist in both worlds.

I hate leisure, except reading. I'm really a person made to work, if sketching is considered work.

There is no question but that nominally religious scientists like Francis Collins and Kenneth R. Miller are doing lasting harm to our discourse by the accommodations they have made to religious irrationality.

I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess. ... We found our refuge in science. ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.

The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we do - what we're really good at, which is - which is theology and morality.

The world loves talent but pays off on character.