Vikram Seth Quotes

God save us from people who mean well.

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 objective sense of the world.

Good books get praised, bad books get praised. Good books get ignored, bad books get ignored

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.

And the process of reading is such a private one. I once came into a room where a friend of mine was reading one of my books, and he clicked his tongue impatiently and shooed me off.

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

And sometimes both of them forgot that what they were undergoing amid the clink of cutlery and crockery was a mutual interview that might decide whether or not they would own a common set of those items some time in the whimsical future.

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 the common kitchen-that nearly causes bloodshed.

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 vein. When she was twelve she came in second in an exam...It hardens you.

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.

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.