I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
VIKRAM SETHFiction 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.
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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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.
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Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.
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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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I think it’s possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
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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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I’m not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
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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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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I’ve remained an Indian.
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I want my books to sell, to be read. I’m not interested in being obscure.
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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.
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I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
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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.
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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.
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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