Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Vikram Seth
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 20
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Calcutta
Left
Progression
Right
Painted
Make
Strokes
Chinese
Painting
Whether
Eye
Calligraphy
Artist
Stroke

More quotes by Vikram Seth

Image
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
Image
I'm not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.
Vikram Seth
Image
I just love music - by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
Vikram Seth
Image
I don't think anyone should be banned. If you don't like a book, set it aside.
Vikram Seth
Image
And the process of reading is such a private one. I once came into a room where a friend of mine was reading one of my books, and he clicked his tongue impatiently and shooed me off.
Vikram Seth
Image
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
Image
Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.
Vikram Seth
Image
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
Image
To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
Vikram Seth
Image
I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
Vikram Seth
Image
For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.
Vikram Seth
Image
I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
Vikram Seth
Image
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
Image
Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
Vikram Seth
Image
Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
Vikram Seth
Image
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.
Vikram Seth
Image
Good music is good music, but it has to be good.
Vikram Seth
Image
Put your backbone where your wishbone is.
Vikram Seth
Image
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
Image
The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.
Vikram Seth