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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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Vikram Seth
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 20
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Calcutta
Need
Needs
Counteracted
Laziness
Obsession
Natural
Order
Anything

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
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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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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.
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I think if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
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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.
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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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I am certainly not allergic to causes - particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
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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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You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
Vikram Seth
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Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
Vikram Seth
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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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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.
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I want my books to sell, to be read. I'm not interested in being obscure.
Vikram Seth
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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.
Vikram Seth
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The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.
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.
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Everyone sort of sees his own life and times as being ephemeral. One thinks that everything good or important that happened, happened in the past. But I think that seeing scenes that you are used to, but with the heightening effects of poetry, perhaps makes you value your life and times more than you might otherwise do.
Vikram Seth
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I just love music - by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
Vikram Seth