Quotes by Vikram Seth

About Vikram Seth:

Vikram Seth is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has received several awards including Padma Shri, Sahitya Akademi Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crossword Book Award. Seth's collections of poetry such as Mappings and Beastly Tales are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

What is the difference between my life and my love? One gets me low, the other lets me go.

Vikram Seth

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

Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth?

Vikram Seth

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

Whenever she opened a scientific book and saw whole paragraphs of incomprehensible words and symbols, she felt a sense of wonder at the great territories of learning that lay beyond her - the sum of so many noble and purposive attempts to make object...

Vikram Seth

And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a ...

Vikram Seth

All over India, all over the world, as the sun or the shadow of darkness moves from east to west, the call to prayer moves with it, and people kneel down in a wave to pray to God. Five waves each day - one for each namaaz - ripple across the globe fr...

Vikram Seth

Oh, no said her mother sadly. You know nothing of the pettiness of women. When brothers agree to split a joint family they sometimes divide lakhs of rupees worth of property in a few minutes. But the tussle of their wives over the pots and pans in th...

Vikram Seth

She had dispersed. She was the garden at Prem Nivas (soon to be entered into the annual Flower Show), she was Veena's love of music, Pran's asthma, Maan's generosity, the survival of some refugees four years ago, the neem leaves that would preserve q...

Vikram Seth

God save us from people who mean well.

Vikram Seth

The ifs and buts of history...form an insubstantial if intoxicating diet.

Vikram Seth

You can't blame her,' said Amit. 'After a life so full of tragedy anyone would become hard.' 'What tragedy?' asked Mrs. Chatterji. 'Well, when she was four,' said Amit, 'her mother slapped her--it was quite traumatic--and then things went on in that ...

Vikram Seth

I've always felt that the performance of a raag resembles a novel - or at least the kind of novel I'm attempting to write. You know,' he continued, extemporizing as he went along, 'first you take one note and explore it for a while, then another to d...

Vikram Seth

Wherever his faltering mind, unsteadily wanders, he should restrain it and bring it under self-control Krishna, the mind is faltering, violent, strong, and stubborn; I find it as difficult to hold as the wind.

Vikram Seth

But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and grow...

Vikram Seth

Poetry, I think, intensifies the reader's experience. If it's a humorous facet of the story, poetry makes it more exuberant. If it's a sad facet, poetry can make it more poignant.

Vikram Seth

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 sh...

Vikram Seth

Of course, a law that is selectively used is in one aspect even worse than a law that is generally used because it puts a lot of power in individuals' hands and makes government a rule, not of laws, but of people.

Vikram Seth

Good music is good music, but it has to be good.

Vikram Seth

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, perhap...

Vikram Seth

Author Bio

  • NameVikram Seth
  • DescriptionIndian writer
  • BornJune 20, 1952
  • CountryIndia
  • ProfessionPoet; Novelist; Writer
  • WorksA Suitable Boy; The Golden Gate; An Equal Music
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; Padma Shri; Sahitya Akademi Award