“I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.”

I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.

And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.

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

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.

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

I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.

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.

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.

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.

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.

If one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.

Understanding our past is a crucial part of understanding the injustices and inequalities of our present and remaking our future as a nation.

After all, the wrong is done. It is past and cannot be changed. We have only the present and the future upon which to move forward.

Though things change, the future’s still inside of me.

You have the right to vote. You have the right to share your voice. you have the opportunity to shape the future of your community.

Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present.