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For a writer, obsession is a good substitute for self-discipline.

Vikram Seth

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Vikram Seth
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: June 20
Librettist
Novelist
Poet
Writer
Calcutta
Substitute
Substitutes
Obsession
Discipline
Writer
Self
Good

More quotes by Vikram Seth

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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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I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.
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You can talk good ideas out of existence.
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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?
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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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Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
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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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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.
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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 need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
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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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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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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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I certainly think its very important that writers as citizens - not necessarily as writers, but just as ordinary citizens - should talk about things that matter to them.
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I think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.
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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I want my books to sell, to be read. I'm not interested in being obscure.
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 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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