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

Vikram Seth

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Vikram Seth
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 20
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Calcutta
Setting
Pick
Picks
Subjects
Choose
Settings

More quotes by Vikram Seth

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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
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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.
Vikram Seth
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Don't put things off till it's too late. You are the DJ of your fate.
Vikram Seth
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And an equation is the same whether it's written in red or green ink
Vikram Seth
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It is exciting to write about the present once one gets beyond the trivia of the moment. As a time to live in, as a time to think about, the present is intriguing.
Vikram Seth
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In general, questions are fine you can always seize upon the parts of them that interest you and concentrate on answering those. And one has to remember when answering questions that asking questions isn't easy either, and for someone who's quite shy to stand up in an audience to speak takes some courage.
Vikram Seth
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Why do writers, say, give up a job in economics and decide to write poetry? Or, why do they give up a job in a bank and decide to paint, like Krishan Khanna? They want to convey something.
Vikram Seth
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Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
Vikram Seth
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I recall drinking sherry in California and dreaming of England, where I ate dalmoth and dreamed of Delhi. What is the purpose, I wonder, of all this restlessness? I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
Vikram Seth
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Put your backbone where your wishbone is.
Vikram Seth
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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.
Vikram Seth
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I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
Vikram Seth
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I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.
Vikram Seth
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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.
Vikram Seth
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Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
Vikram Seth
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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?
Vikram Seth
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I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
Vikram Seth
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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
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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I've remained an Indian.
Vikram Seth
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I'm not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
Vikram Seth