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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.

Vikram Seth

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

Myself Reason Religious Subject Tolerance
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
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

Character Establishment Existence Happiness Revision Yourself
Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Goodness Ignorance Praise
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Hands Love Night Oneself Right Sleep Tears Yourself
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
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH

God People Protection
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Elegant Experience Face Poetry Reading Sad Story Thinking
I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
VIKRAM SETH

Life Myself Understand
In life’s brief game to be a winner A man must have; oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.
VIKRAM SETH

Game Life Love Man Winner
Dear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
VIKRAM SETH

Myself Reading
I want my books to sell, to be read. I’m not interested in being obscure.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Interest Myself Reading
I think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
VIKRAM SETH

Action Myself Thinking Worth
I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
VIKRAM SETH

Future Material Nostalgia Time World
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 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 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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Popular Authors

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