In art, something comes of nothing. Out of the thin air and the ether, you create a story. And that is intensely satisfying.

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?' Mr. Okamoto: 'That's an interesting question?' Mr. Chiba: 'The story with animals.' Mr. Okamoto: 'Yes. The story with animals is the better story.' Pi Patel: 'Thank you. And so it goes with God.

Words are cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field-but they're all we have.

As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.

Music is a bird's answer to the noise and heaviness of words. It puts the mind in a state of exhilarated speechlessness.

Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.

So you want another story?" Uhh... no. We would like to know what really happened." Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?" Uhh... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English." Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?