Yann Martel

If you understand life, read great books, look at great pictures, listen to great music, see great movies, that's how you understood what it means to be human.

A very intramural, powerful way.

And I loved that.

I became a writer as a result of it, loved it.

Then I got to India.

following a girl, didn't work out with the girl, but it worked out with the country.

I got to India and there was something about India, for the first time I saw manifestations of religion that didn't offend me.

A Pandit, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim had never bothered me.

And I saw their practices and I, because it was the exotic setting of India,

I first of all saw beauty and just purely on the superficial level of what they were doing, Hindu temples, mosques.

And then I saw the practice and I saw people who were in a gentle way doing something marvelous.

And I thought, what am I missing here?

They're surely not all quietly muttering detestation of women, gays, Jews, you know, there must be something else happening.

And so when I wrote Life of Pi, I was curious about that.

Like, what am I missing here?

What aspect am I missing here?

it was that magical thinking of religion.

So at that time I was curious about that.

Each book has answered a question for me to my satisfaction.

So at that time I would say I was sort of a bit lost and I happened to go in India and I came to life because of the story that eventually I turned into Life of Pi.