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.
VIKRAM SETHI’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
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You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.
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Man without life companion is either god or beast.
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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.
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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?
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What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.
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For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
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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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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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There are plenty of good Indian writers in English, and none of us feel we are carrying the burden of being a poster boy.
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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.
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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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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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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
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I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.
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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