“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.”

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.

Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?

So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.

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.

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.

Put your backbone where your wishbone is.

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.

It’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.

In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.

You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.

Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.

I really like listening to music in my car.

Next time I go to a movie and see a picture of a little ordinary girl become a great star… I’ll believe it. And whenever I hear my wife read fairy tales to my little boy, I’ll listen. I know now that dreams do come true.

When I speak of the gifted listener, I am thinking of the nonmusician primarily, of the listener who intends to retain his amateur status. It is the thought of just such a listener that excites the composer in me.

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

We must listen to poets.

If I had listened to the critics I’d have died drunk in the gutter

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.