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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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Vikram Seth
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 20
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Calcutta
Sell
Sells
Interested
Books
Read
Book
Obscure

More quotes by 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'm not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
Vikram Seth
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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.
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.
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.
Vikram Seth
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In a painting, you can't make out whether the artist painted the left eye before the right eye. In Chinese calligraphy, you can see the progression of the artist's stroke.
Vikram Seth
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Good music is good music, but it has to be good.
Vikram Seth
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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.
Vikram Seth
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Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music-not too much, or the soul could not sustain it-from time to time.
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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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.
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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I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I'm not. I'm just obsessed with my work.
Vikram Seth
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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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Poetry, I think, intensifies the reader's experience. If it's a humorous facet of the story, poetry makes it more exuberant. If it's a sad facet, poetry can make it more poignant.
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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You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
Vikram Seth
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I think if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well. And worth thinking about it as well.
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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I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
Vikram Seth