In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.
VIKRAM SETHThink of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
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You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
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Those books of mine that are remunerative – I’m not talking about poetry here – take years to write, and I am never sure they’ll be successful. So writing is a risk in more senses than one.
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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
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.
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Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
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I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
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What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.
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God save us from people who mean well.
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Dear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
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I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
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In life’s brief game to be a winner A man must have; oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.
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Don’t put things off till it’s too late. You are the DJ of your fate.
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I certainly think its very important that writers as citizens – not necessarily as writers, but just as ordinary citizens – should talk about things that matter to them.
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I tend to follow a scattershot approach to reading a lot of very diverse subjects interest me, and I’m quite happy to read stuff on any of them.
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I am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
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And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.
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I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
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I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
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Poetry, I think, intensifies the reader’s experience. If it’s a humorous facet of the story, poetry makes it more exuberant. If it’s a sad facet, poetry can make it more poignant.
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So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
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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.
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I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.
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I simply seem to drift. But I sort of allow the drift, because it has a kind of check – it forces me to work harder at what I’m interested in.
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It is exciting to write about the present once one gets beyond the trivia of the moment. As a time to live in, as a time to think about, the present is intriguing.
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To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
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You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.
VIKRAM SETH