I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I’m not. I’m just obsessed with my work.
VIKRAM SETHQuietly 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.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
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I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
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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.
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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 -
Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
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You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
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I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
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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.
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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.
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The past is the past, and he can’t make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.
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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.
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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.
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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.
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And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.
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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.
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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.
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You can talk good ideas out of existence.
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Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
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Put your backbone where your wishbone is.
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Man without life companion is either god or beast.
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I am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
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For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
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So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
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I think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
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Dear though the reader might be, I’d be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
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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