147 Quotes by Vikram Seth

Sometimes i write the best about the things that I care about least

To steel yourself against mangoes showed a degree of iciness that was almost inhuman.

It was a warm evening, and there was less silk and more fine cotton than at Savita's wedding. But the jewellery glittered just as gloriously. Meenakshi's little pear-earrings, Veena's navratan and Malati's emeralds glinted across the garden, whispering to each other the stories of their owners.

All over India, all over the world, as the sun or the shadow of darkness moves from east to west, the call to prayer moves with it, and people kneel down in a wave to pray to God. Five waves each day - one for each namaaz - ripple across the globe from longitude to longtigude. The component elements change direction, like iron filings near a magnet - towards the house of God in Mecca.

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.

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

I vecchi si aggrappano al potere e alle loro convinzioni, che ammettono tutti i loro vizi peggiori ma escludono il minimo errore e soffocano la minima innovazione dei giovani. Poi, grazie a Dio, muoiono e non possono fare più danni. Ma ormai noi, i giovani, siamo diventati vecchi, e ci sforziamo di quel po' di male che loro hanno lasciato incompiuto.

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

And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a communist.'Rasheed reflected that this probably meant only that he loathed the poverty and injustice endemic to the village, and that he made no particular secret of it.