Of course, the greater one’s need, the greater one’s propensity to be mesmerized.
VIKRAM SETHI sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
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Dear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
VIKRAM SETH -
Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music-not too much, or the soul could not sustain it-from time to time.
VIKRAM SETH -
Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
VIKRAM SETH -
So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
VIKRAM SETH -
I don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.
VIKRAM SETH -
The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.
VIKRAM SETH -
In a painting, you can’t make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist’s stroke.
VIKRAM SETH -
My eyes close. I am here and not here. A waking nap? A flight to the end of the galaxy and perhaps a couple of billion light-years beyond?
VIKRAM SETH -
Revision has its own peculiar pleasures and its own peculiar frustrations. The ground rules are already established; the characters already exist. You don’t have to bring the characters to life, but you do have to make them more convincing.
VIKRAM SETH -
It’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.
VIKRAM SETH -
You have to learn a few things, which you do along the way, but basically, poetry is a matter of the ear. Iambic pentameters or what constitutes a stanza comes naturally – your ears will know.
VIKRAM SETH -
All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left or right, An emptiness above– Know that you aren’t alone. The whole world shares your tears, Some for two nights or one, And some for all your years.
VIKRAM SETH -
Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
VIKRAM SETH -
I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
VIKRAM SETH -
Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.
VIKRAM SETH