“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.”

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.

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

So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.

I tend to follow a scattershot approach to reading a lot of very diverse subjects interest me, and I’m quite happy to read stuff on any of them.

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.

Put your backbone where your wishbone is.

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.

It’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.

In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.

You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.

I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren’t in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets.

Books are like mirrors: if a fool looks in, you cannot expect a genius to look out.

The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.

It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.

I walked into my own book, seeking peace. It was night, and I made a careless movement inside the dream; I turned too brusquely the corner and I bruised myself against my madness.

You can make anything by writing.

You have to be a speedy reader because there’s so so much to read.

My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.