Vikram Seth Quotes

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 growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.

I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.

All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left or right, An emptiness above— Know that you aren't alone. The whole world shares your tears, Some for two nights or one, And some for all your years.

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

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

Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person's power. Be just to yourself.

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.

And an equation is the same whether it's written in red or green ink

In life's brief game to be a winner A man must have...oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love.