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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

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Vikram Seth
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 20
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Calcutta
Music
Writing
Much
Absorbs
Like
Bothers
Rarely
Bother
Listen
Write

More quotes by Vikram Seth

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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.
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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.
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I don't pick and choose subjects or settings they pick and choose me.
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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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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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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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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.
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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.
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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 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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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.
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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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For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
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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I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
Vikram Seth
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You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
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 just love music - by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
Vikram Seth
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I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
Vikram Seth
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Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
Vikram Seth