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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.

Vikram Seth

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

Book Help Himself Object Place Proper Seek True
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Oneself Poetry Risk Success Talk Writing
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

Distract Economics Feeling Happiness Life Myself Novel Writing
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Force Hard Interest Kind Myself Simplicity Work
So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
VIKRAM SETH

English Language Novel Writing
I don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Myself Thinking
Of course, the greater one’s need, the greater one’s propensity to be mesmerized.
VIKRAM SETH

Greatness Mesmerize Need
Fiction basically is a form of gossip where you want to enter other people’s lives, the lives of people you don’t know, and you want to know what’s going to happen to them.
VIKRAM SETH

Fiction Gossip Live People Yourself
I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.
VIKRAM SETH

Goodness Myself Nature Person Thinking World
I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Feeling Media Myself News People Space Writing
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Artist Paint Progress See Yourself
I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I’m not. I’m just obsessed with my work.
VIKRAM SETH

Myself Obesession Reputation Work
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH

God People Protection
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH

God One Liner People Save
For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
VIKRAM SETH

Discipline Obsession Substitute Writing
I am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
VIKRAM SETH

Myself Reason Religious Subject Tolerance

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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