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 SETHYou 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.
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.
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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 am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
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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 think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
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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?
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Man without life companion is either god or beast.
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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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Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.
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And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.
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You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.
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Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
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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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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 often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
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