Adult Pi Patel Quotes in Life of Pi (2012)

Adult Pi Patel: I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.

Adult Pi Patel: Faith is a house with many rooms.

Writer: But no room for doubt?

Adult Pi Patel: Oh plenty, on every floor. Doubt is useful, it keeps faith a living thing. After all, you cannot know the strength of your faith until it is tested.

Adult Pi Patel: So which story do you prefer?

Writer: The one with the tiger. That's the better story.

Adult Pi Patel: Thank you. And so it goes with God.

Writer: [smiles] It's an amazing story.

Adult Pi Patel: [Pi and Richard Parker in the boat when they're about to leave the island]

[voice over]

Adult Pi Patel: No one has seen that island since, and you'd never read about those trees in any book. And yet, if I hadn't found those shores I would have died, if I hadn't discovered that tooth I would have been lost alone forever. Even when God seemed to have abandoned me, he was watching. Even when He seemed indifferent to my suffering, He was watching and when I was beyond all hope of saving... He gave me rest and gave me a sign to continue my journey...

Adult Pi Patel: [voiceover, scene shows Mexican beach] I was so spent, I could hardly move. And so, Richard Parker went ahead of me. He stretched his legs, and walked along the shore. At the edge of the jungle, he stopped. I was certain he was going to look back at me, flatten his ears to his head, growl. That he would bring our relationship to an end in some way. But he just stared ahead into the jungle.

Adult Pi Patel: [in present, to Writer] And then Richard Parker, my fierce companion, the terrible one who kept me alive, disappeared forever from my life.

Adult Pi Patel: [voiceover, beach scene again] After a few hours, a member of my own species found me. He left and returned with a group who carried me away. I wept like a child. Not because I was overwhelmed at having survived, although I was. I was weeping because Richard Parker left me *so* unceremoniously. It broke my heart.

Adult Pi Patel: [in present again, to Writer] You know, my father was right. Richard Parker never saw me as his friend. After all we had been through, he didn't even look back. But I have to believe there was more in his eyes than my own reflection staring back at me. I know it, I felt it, even if I can't prove it. You know, I've left so much behind: my family, the zoo, India, Anandi. I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go. But what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye. I was never able to thank my father for all I learned from him. To tell him, without his lessons, I would never have survived. I know Richard Parker is a tiger but I wish I had said, "It's over. We survived. Thank you for saving my life. I love you, Richard Parker. You'll always be with me. May God be with you."

Writer: I don't know what to say.

Adult Pi Patel: It's hard to believe, isn't it?

Writer: It is a lot to take in. To figure out what it all means.

Adult Pi Patel: If it happened, it happened. Why should it have to mean anything?

[first lines]

Writer: So, you were raised in a zoo?

Adult Pi Patel: Born and raised. In Pondicherry, in what was the French part of India. My father owned the zoo, and I was delivered on short notice by a herpetologist, who was there to check on the Bengal monitor lizard. Mother and I were both healthy, but the poor lizard escaped and was trampled by a frightened cassowary. The way of karma, huh? The way of God.

Writer: So your story does have a happy ending.

Adult Pi Patel: Well, that's up to you. The story's yours now.

Writer: I didn't know Hindus said 'Amen.'

Adult Pi Patel: Catholic Hindus do.

Writer: Catholic Hindus?

Adult Pi Patel: We get to feel guilty before hundreds of gods instead of just one.

Adult Pi Patel: With one word, my name went from an elegant French swimming pool to a stinking Indian latrine - I was pissing everywhere.

Adult Pi Patel: What has mamaji already told you?

Writer: He said you had a story that would make me believe in God.

Adult Pi Patel: [laughs] He would say that about a nice meal.

Adult Pi Patel: My uncle Francis was born with too much water in his lungs. They say the doctors swung Francis around by the ankles to clear the water out, and that's what gave him the huge chest and skinny legs that made him such a great swimmer.

Pi Patel (11: [pointing to oil painting of Christ's crucifixion] Why would a god do that? Why would he send his own son to suffer the sins of ordinary people?

Priest: Because He loves us. God made Himself approachable to us, human, so we could understand Him. We can't understand God in all His perfection, but we can understand God's son and His suffering, as we would a brother's.

Adult Pi Patel: [in present, to Writer] That made no sense. Sacrificing the innocent to atone for the sins of the guilty, what kind of love is that?

Adult Pi Patel: Now we have to send our little boy to the middle of the Pacific.

Writer: And make me believe in God.

Adult Pi Patel: Yes, we will get there.

Writer: Have I forgotten anything?

Adult Pi Patel: I think you set the stage. So far we have an Indian boy named after a French swimming pool on a Japanese ship full of animals heading to Canada.

Pi Patel: Then the ship sank. What else do you want from me?

Younger Insurance Investigator: A story that won't make us look like fools.

Older Insurance Investigator: We need a simpler story for our report. One our company can understand. A story we can all believe.

Pi Patel: [pause] So, a story without things you've never seen before.

Older Insurance Investigator: That's right.

Pi Patel: Without surprises, without animals, or islands?

Older Insurance Investigator: Yes, the truth.

Writer: [back to present, to Adult Pi Patel] So, what did you do?

Adult Pi Patel: I told them another story.