Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
VIKRAM SETHIn 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.
More Vikram Seth Quotes
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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.
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You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.
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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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The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.
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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.
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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.
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And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink.
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I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
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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.
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Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
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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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You get your inspiration – suggestions – wherever you have to, even from your mother.
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I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
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In life’s brief game to be a winner A man must have; oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.
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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.
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To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
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I just love music – by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
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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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It’s not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.
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Put your backbone where your wishbone is.
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For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.
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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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I don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.
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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.
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Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
VIKRAM SETH