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 SETHIt’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
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Every object strives for its proper place. A book seeks to be near its truest admirer. Just as this helpless moth seeks to be near the candle that infatuates him.
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 -
The past is the past, and he can’t make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.
VIKRAM SETH -
Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
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 -
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 -
I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
VIKRAM SETH -
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
VIKRAM SETH -
Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
VIKRAM SETH -
I spent many years of my life as an economist and demographer. I was finally distracted by writing my novels and poetry. I’m enormously happy that was the case. I feel that with writing I have found my metier.
VIKRAM SETH -
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH -
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.
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 -
Dear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
VIKRAM SETH -
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.
VIKRAM SETH