quotes from classic

As for what I listen to after writing, it could be anything - but I've noticed that if the current book contains music from one tradition, it is music from another tradition that most relaxes me.

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I'm not sure anyone can understand a whole life, even their own.

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After 'A Suitable Boy,' I didn't write anything, not even a short story. I thought to myself: 'I ought to start writing.' But I can never force myself to write.

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Good music is good music, but it has to be good.

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I have a reputation for being hermitlike. I'm not. I'm just obsessed with my work.

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So many Indian novels, quite unfairly, do not get the prominence they should because they have been written in a language other than English.

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On the whole, I don't like reading long books. I'm not a fan of 'Ulysses.' And I haven't quite finished 'War and Peace.'

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Of course, I have to consider that I've written a lot of prose, but I do in my heart think of myself as being originally, and still primarily, a poet.

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I need my natural laziness to be counteracted by obsession in order to do anything.

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Do not write if there is no tremendous urge to do so. At the heart, there must be an inspiration or muse or one of those old-fashioned things. Else, why bore yourself, destroy other people's interest and kill trees?

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The trick to being a novelist is to act like an iceberg. Make it seem as if you're displaying only one-tenth of what you know, and the other nine-tenths isn't visible and never mind if that part is pure styrofoam!

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In spite of all temptations of belonging to many nations, I've remained an Indian.

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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.

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I don't read as much as people may expect. In fact, sometimes I feel that I should probably read more, but then I do believe that one of the big problems of our times is that there's too much reading and not enough thinking.

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I love speculating about solutions to problems in mathematics. I have no interest whatever in sudoku. But I do look at chess and bridge problems in newspapers. I find that relaxing.

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The thing about inspiration is that it takes your mind off everything else.

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If I'm compelled to do something, I don't shy away from it simply because I haven't tackled it before.

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I rarely listen to music while writing. If I don't like it, it bothers me, and if I like it, it absorbs me so much I can't write.

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I am certainly not allergic to causes - particularly on subjects such as religious intolerance.

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Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.

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