Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
VIKRAM SETHYou know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
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I rarely listen to music while writing. If I don’t like it, it bothers me, and if I like it, it absorbs me so much I can’t write.
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You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
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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.
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I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
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For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
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I don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.
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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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To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
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I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
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You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.
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I think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.
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It’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.
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I am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
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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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I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
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God save us from people who mean well.
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You can talk good ideas out of existence.
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The past is the past, and he can’t make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.
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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.
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And the process of reading is such a private one. I once came into a room where a friend of mine was reading one of my books, and he clicked his tongue impatiently and shooed me off.
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Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
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I don’t think people give Indian society enough credit. We may not like to talk much about things but we do, basically, want to live and let live.
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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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You get your inspiration – suggestions – wherever you have to, even from your mother.
VIKRAM SETH