Quotes by Vikram Seth

I just love music - by no stretch of the imagination am I professionally competent.

I spent many years of my life as an economist and demographer. I was finally distracted by writing my novels and poetry. Im enormously happy that was the case. I feel that with writing I have found my metier.

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.

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.

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.

Those books of mine that are remunerative - Im not talking about poetry here - take years to write, and I am never sure theyll be successful. So writing is a risk in more senses than one.

You know, I can imagine not writing a novel and writing poetry only.