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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

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
Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
VIKRAM SETH

Boredom Strong Writing
I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
VIKRAM SETH

Lazy Myself Natural Need Obsession Order
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
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 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
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
I don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.
VIKRAM SETH

Choice Myself
You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
VIKRAM SETH

Imagination Myself Novel Poetry Writing
I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Feeling Media Myself News People Space Writing
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
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
Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.
VIKRAM SETH

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

Greatness Mesmerize Need
For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
VIKRAM SETH

Discipline Obsession Substitute Writing
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH

God People Protection
I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
VIKRAM SETH

Future Material Nostalgia Time World
So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
VIKRAM SETH

English Language Novel Writing
What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.
VIKRAM SETH

Difference Let Go Life Love Myself Relationship
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
I want my books to sell, to be read. I’m not interested in being obscure.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Interest Myself Reading
I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
VIKRAM SETH

Eligible Imagination Love Music Myself Professional
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
Don’t put things off till it’s too late. You are the DJ of your fate.
VIKRAM SETH

Fate Late Time 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
I am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
VIKRAM SETH

Myself Reason Religious Subject Tolerance

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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