Vikram Seth quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Vikram Seth

Vikram Seth Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Vikram Seth on Wise Famous Quotes.

I don't think anyone should be banned. If you don't like a book, set it aside.

And an equation is the same whether it's written in red or green ink

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.

If I'm compelled to do something, I don't shy away from it simply because I haven't tackled it before.

My eyes close. I am here and not here. A waking nap? A flight to the end of the galaxy and perhaps a couple of billion light-years beyond?

I'm not a mouse or a tigress, she thought, I'm a hedgehog.

It's not the gods But our own hearts We need to fear. The evil starts Against all odds Not there but here.

I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.

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.

You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.

I think if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.

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

For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.

Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.

I want my books to sell, to be read. I'm not interested in being obscure.

God save us from people who mean well.

I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.

Man without life companion is either god or beast.

To steel yourself against mangoes showed a degree of iciness that was almost inhuman.

Of course, the greater one's need, the greater one's propensity to be mesmerized.

I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I'm not. I'm just obsessed with my work.

In life's brief game to be a winner
A man must have ... oh yes, above
All else, of course, someone to love.

So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.

To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away,

Put your backbone where your wishbone is.

Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.

ghazal that he had heard Saeeda Bai sing, but, oddly,

My main motivation is not to get bored. I'm just hoping I get a vaguely maverick reputation.

I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.

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

Don't put things off till it's too late. You are the DJ of your fate.

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.

I just love music - by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.

The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.

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

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

Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.

In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I've remained an Indian.

On the whole, I don't like reading long books. I'm not a fan of 'Ulysses.' And I haven't quite finished 'War and Peace.'

Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?

You can talk good ideas out of existence.

He had come to a decision about the next step in his life. This decision was irrevocable unless he changed his mind.

Each point in the universe must make up its own mind on the question of acknowledgement before acknowledgement can be considered universal.

The past is the past, and he can't make amends, only hope that the gain will outlast the damage.

You will get what you want but you must want it and not just wish it.

I am certainly not allergic to causes - particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.

In the painting I saw, in the books I read, I recalled her, for she her had in many ways been the making of me.

What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.

I don't pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.

Perhaps it is true that for all the evidence of the mirror, one pictures oneself in some deep niche of the mind as forever 18.

Of course, I have to consider that I've written a lot of prose, but I do in my heart think of myself as being originally, and still primarily, a poet.

Good music is good music, but it has to be good.

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.

Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored

The ifs and buts of history ... form an insubstantial if intoxicating diet.