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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
Self
Good
Substitute
Substitutes
Obsession
Discipline
Writer

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.
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 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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God save us from people who mean well.
Vikram Seth
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Boredom provides a stronger inclination to write than anything.
Vikram Seth
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To not be able to love the one you love is to have your life wrenched away.
Vikram Seth
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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.
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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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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So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.
Vikram Seth
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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.
Vikram Seth
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I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.
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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In life's brief game to be a winner A man must have...oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.
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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Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.
Vikram Seth
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Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.
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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Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?
Vikram Seth