12 Quotes by Vikram Chandra

Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.''Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.''When are we happy?''When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.''What is regret?''To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.''What is sorrow?''To long for the past.''What is the highest pleasure?''To hear a good story.

...the sodden, sweaty weariness of his own body, the whisky misery of it.

The future is simple. The future is simple, I can hold it i the palm of my hand; and the present is just a matter of endurance, detachment, and a sense of humor.

What could my mother beto yours? What kin is my fatherto yours anyway? And howdid you and I meet ever?But in loveour hearts have mingledlike red earth and pouring rain.

Then what in your opinion is a good story?''What it's always been, monkey,' Ganesha said. 'One dhansu conflict. Some chaka-chak song and dance. Grief. Love. Love for the lover, love for the mother. Love for the land. Comedy. Terror. One tremendous villain whom we must love also. All the elements properly balanced and mixed together, item after item, like a perfect meal with a dance of tastes. There you have it.

The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world.

When you’re a writer, sometimes you have to spend time poking at a part of yourself that normal, sane people leave alone.

So now that began to develop into a full-fledged shouting match of its own, and all in all it was soon a full-scale old-style Bombay tamasha, with people watching from every balcony and window in every building, up and down the road, laughing and giving advice and yelling at each other.

I was writing fiction steadily, but I found that the stark determinisms of code were a welcome relief from the ambiguities of literary narrative.