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I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.

Vikram Seth

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

Future Material Nostalgia Time World
I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I’m not. I’m just obsessed with my work.
VIKRAM SETH

Myself Obesession Reputation Work
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
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH

God One Liner People Save
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Happiness Interest Myself Quite Subject
Those books of mine that are remunerative – I’m not talking about poetry here – take years to write, and I am never sure they’ll be successful. So writing is a risk in more senses than one.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Oneself Poetry Risk Success Talk Writing
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Listening Music Myself Poet Writing
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
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 think if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
VIKRAM SETH

Action Myself Thinking Worth
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
VIKRAM SETH

Existence Goodness Ideas Talk Yourself
Put your backbone where your wishbone is.
VIKRAM SETH

Dreams Inspirational Success Yourself
To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
VIKRAM SETH

Hard Time Heart Broken Life Love Yourself
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
Of course, the greater one’s need, the greater one’s propensity to be mesmerized.
VIKRAM SETH

Greatness Mesmerize Need
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
The past is the past, and he can’t make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.
VIKRAM SETH

Change Damage Hope Past
I am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
VIKRAM SETH

Myself Reason Religious Subject Tolerance
I don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.
VIKRAM SETH

Choice Myself
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

Book Help Himself Object Place Proper Seek True
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
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
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Distract Economics Feeling Happiness Life Myself Novel Writing
You get your inspiration – suggestions – wherever you have to, even from your mother.
VIKRAM SETH

Inspirational Mom Yourself
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Hands Love Night Oneself Right Sleep Tears Yourself
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
I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
VIKRAM SETH

Eligible Imagination Love Music Myself Professional

I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.

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I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.

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