I think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
VIKRAM SETHI think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
VIKRAM SETHYou will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.
VIKRAM SETHYou know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
VIKRAM SETHThe past is the past, and he can’t make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.
VIKRAM SETHFiction 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 SETHDear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
VIKRAM SETHMusic, 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 SETHI 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 SETHTo not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
VIKRAM SETHThere are plenty of good Indian writers in English, and none of us feel we are carrying the burden of being a poster boy.
VIKRAM SETHAnd 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.
VIKRAM SETHThose 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 SETHI often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
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.
VIKRAM SETHEvery 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 SETHIt 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