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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

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

Greatness Mesmerize Need
Don’t put things off till it’s too late. You are the DJ of your fate.
VIKRAM SETH

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

Inspirational Motivational Yourself
There are plenty of good Indian writers in English, and none of us feel we are carrying the burden of being a poster boy.
VIKRAM SETH

Carry Feeling Goodness Man Writing
It’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.
VIKRAM SETH

Evil Fear God Heart Need Start
I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
VIKRAM SETH

Eligible Imagination Love Music Myself Professional
I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
VIKRAM SETH

Business Inspirational Myself Possible Talent Thinking Tree
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
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
You get your inspiration – suggestions – wherever you have to, even from your mother.
VIKRAM SETH

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

Book Interest Myself Reading
For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
VIKRAM SETH

Discipline Obsession Substitute Writing
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
Man without life companion is either god or beast.
VIKRAM SETH

God Life Man Partner
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
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
Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
VIKRAM SETH

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

Myself Reading
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
VIKRAM SETH

Existence Goodness Ideas Talk Yourself
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 sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
VIKRAM SETH

Future Material Nostalgia Time World

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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