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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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Vikram Seth
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 20
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Calcutta
Poetry
Along
Learn
Iambic
Comes
Stanza
Matter
Constitutes
Way
Naturally
Things
Basically
Ears

More quotes by 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.
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I don't pick and choose subjects or settings they pick and choose me.
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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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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I've remained an Indian.
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Put your backbone where your wishbone is.
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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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What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.
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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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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Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
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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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God save us from people who mean well.
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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Don't put things off till it's too late. You are the DJ of your fate.
Vikram Seth
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I am certainly not allergic to causes - particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.
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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I just love music - by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.
Vikram Seth
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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.
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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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I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.
Vikram Seth