Support or refute a statement using Life of Pi and Hamlet

Assignment: Support or refute the statement below within your essay using Life of Pi and Hamlet . In your essay, you must integrate and properly cite quotations into each of your arguments (one argument per text) for textual support.

"Sometimes survival is a matter of acting; sometimes it is a matter of not-acting."

Notes: This is for a Grade 12 English essay. It's supposed to be a 5 paragraph essay (introduction 1, content 3, conclusion 1).

My problem: I'm having difficulty thinking of quotes for Life of Pi and Hamlet to support the statement. Two quotes max for each text is best. Also I'm not really sure what to write for a thesis.

Any help is appreciated.

Pi is about a shipwreck, so you can find quotes about survival. Hamlet obviously has a lot of survival and non-survival. It's easy to find quotes about life and death, and it's easy to find quotes about action people take. Sometimes the action saves them, and sometimes it gets them killed. In which story do you think you have more examples of survival being a matter of not acting? I know the answer I would give...

I think you should skim through and pull out ANY 10 quotes from the books as long as they have something to do with survival or death. There are a lot! Do that, and then challenge yourself to use one of them to support or refute the statement.

*** The fact that you are allowed to support or refute should make this very easy, but really I don't think it is a statement that can be refuted sensibly.

*** This is easier than you think. : )