I am careful about fiction. A novel is not a tract or an essay. If I want to write about land reforms, or Hindu-Muslim relations, or position of women, I can do it as it affects my characters as in… — Vikram Seth Copy Share
Realism hasn't fallen out of favor with most people, who are interested in people's lives rather than gymnastics of style or literary trends. It's… — Vikram Seth Copy Share Image
I don't think anyone should be banned. If you don't like a book, set it aside. — Vikram Seth Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
“But what should I do?' Varun was saying. 'I'm not good for anything.' 'Write a book! Pull a rickshaw! Live! Don't make excuses,' said Dr. Ila Chattopadhyay, shaking her grey hair vigorously. 'Renounce the world like Dipankar. No, he's joined a bank, hasn't he? How did you do in your exams anyway?' she added." - Vikram Seth, "A Suitable Boy” — Vikram Seth Copy Share
“In a clear brook With joyful haste The whimsical trout Shot past me like an arrow I play the line of the song, I… — Vikram Seth Copy Share Image
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… — Vikram Seth Copy Share Image
The problem with too beautiful a view is that it's alright for the mulling stage. But for the writing stage, you want to be… — Vikram Seth Copy Share Image
“Romantic retrospect aside, the night spent in the truck is distinctly unpleasant. We are cramped and cold. The much-vaunted heating of the truck is ineffectual. The wind prises through the cracks in the sides of the windows, and penetrates us to the bone. My feet are moist in my shoes, yet to take my socks off is to chill my… — Vikram Seth Copy Share
Is it not love that knows how to make smooth things rough and rough things smooth? — Vikram Seth Copy Share Image
“Well, what do you think? Avanti?" "Avanti," cries everyone, and, after a few quick re-tunings of our instruments, and re-initialisings of our hearts, we enter the slow theme-and-variations movement. How good it is to pay this quintet, to play it, not to work at it - to play for our own joy, with no need to convey anything to anyone… — Vikram Seth Copy Share
Behind every door on every ordinary street, in every hut in every ordinary village in this middling planet of a trivial star, such riches are to be found. The strange journeys we undertake on our earthly pilgrimage, the joy and suffering we taste or confer, the chance events that leave us together or apart, what a complex trace they leave:… — Vikram Seth Copy Share
