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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 sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.
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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 think goodness is about how person behaves to person, and also person to world, to nature.
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There are plenty of good Indian writers in English, and none of us feel we are carrying the burden of being a poster boy.
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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.
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God save us from people who mean well.
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You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.
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I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.
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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.
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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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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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Revision has its own peculiar pleasures and its own peculiar frustrations. The ground rules are already established the characters already exist. You don't have to bring the characters to life, but you do have to make them more convincing.
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And an equation is the same whether it's written in red or green ink
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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.
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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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What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.
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You get your inspiration - suggestions - wherever you have to, even from your mother.
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Fiction basically is a form of gossip where you want to enter other people's lives, the lives of people you don't know, and you want to know what's going to happen to them.
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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 don't pick and choose subjects or settings they pick and choose me.
Vikram Seth