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 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.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
-
-
God save us from people who mean well.
VIKRAM SETH -
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 -
Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.
VIKRAM SETH -
What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.
VIKRAM SETH -
You can talk good ideas out of existence.
VIKRAM SETH -
I don’t pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.
VIKRAM SETH -
In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.
VIKRAM SETH -
I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
VIKRAM SETH -
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 -
You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
VIKRAM SETH -
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 -
The past is the past, and he can’t make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.
VIKRAM SETH -
Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
VIKRAM SETH -
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 -
And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.
VIKRAM SETH