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Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.

Vikram Seth

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
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
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
Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
VIKRAM SETH

Love Philosophy Rough
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
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
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH

God One Liner People Save
I don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.
VIKRAM SETH

Choice Myself
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

Beyond Excitement Intrigue Live Present Time
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
VIKRAM SETH

Existence Goodness Ideas Talk Yourself
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

Learning Natural Poetry Way Yourself
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

Blessing Enough Gift Grief Happiness Hope Music Soul Time
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
To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
VIKRAM SETH

Hard Time Heart Broken Life Love Yourself
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

Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.

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Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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