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I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I’m not. I’m just obsessed with my work.

Vikram Seth

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
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
You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.
VIKRAM SETH

Inspirational Motivational Yourself
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH

God One Liner People Save
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Friendship Myself Patience Privacy Process Reading Room
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
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
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?
VIKRAM SETH

Beyond Couple End Eyes Light Wake Up
Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
VIKRAM SETH

Happiness Person Place Power Thinking Yourself
Don’t put things off till it’s too late. You are the DJ of your fate.
VIKRAM SETH

Fate Late Time Yourself
For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
VIKRAM SETH

Discipline Obsession Substitute Writing
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
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
I certainly think its very important that writers as citizens – not necessarily as writers, but just as ordinary citizens – should talk about things that matter to them.
VIKRAM SETH

Citizenship Important Myself Talk Thinking 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’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
VIKRAM SETH

Life Myself Understand
I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
VIKRAM SETH

Eligible Imagination Love Music Myself Professional
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

Enough Live Myself People Talk Thinking
I 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 SETH

Listening Music Myself Poet Writing
And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.
VIKRAM SETH

Equation Ink Writing
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 don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.
VIKRAM SETH

Choice Myself
Dear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
VIKRAM SETH

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

Greatness Mesmerize Need
Quietly they moved down the calm and sacred river that had come down to earth so that its waters might flow over the ashes of those long dead, and that would continue to flow long after the human race had, through hatred and knowledge, burned itself out.
VIKRAM SETH

Burn Calm Earth Flow Hate Human Knowledge Quiet Race River
I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
VIKRAM SETH

Future Material Nostalgia Time World
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

I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I’m not. I’m just obsessed with my work.

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I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I’m not. I’m just obsessed with my work.

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