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You get your inspiration – suggestions – wherever you have to, even from your mother.

Vikram Seth

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
There are plenty of good Indian writers in English, and none of us feel we are carrying the burden of being a poster boy.
VIKRAM SETH

Carry Feeling Goodness Man Writing
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Burn Calm Earth Flow Hate Human Knowledge Quiet Race River
Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Goodness Ignorance Praise
Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
VIKRAM SETH

Love Philosophy Rough
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.
VIKRAM SETH

Enough Live Myself People Talk Thinking
You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
VIKRAM SETH

Imagination Myself Novel Poetry Writing
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

Learning Natural Poetry Way Yourself
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
In life’s brief game to be a winner A man must have; oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.
VIKRAM SETH

Game Life Love Man Winner
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
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 don’t think anyone should be banned. If you don’t like a book, set it aside.
VIKRAM SETH

Book Myself Thinking
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
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 am certainly not allergic to causes – particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
VIKRAM SETH

Myself Reason Religious Subject Tolerance

You get your inspiration – suggestions – wherever you have to, even from your mother.

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You get your inspiration – suggestions – wherever you have to, even from your mother.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Vikram Seth Quotes