Vikram Seth

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.

I don't pick and choose subjects or settings; they pick and choose me.

I often feel newspapers are just filling up space. Of course, I also know people who write really long books.

I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge.

I tend to follow a scattershot approach to reading a lot of very diverse subjects interest me, and I'm quite happy to read stuff on any of them.

The problem with too beautiful a view is that it's alright for the mulling stage. But for the writing stage, you want to be somewhere without a view, especially if it is very different from what you're writing.

I certainly think it's very important that writers as citizens - not necessarily as writers, but just as ordinary citizens - should talk about things that matter to them.

I want my books to sell, to be read. I'm not interested in being obscure.

I think it's possible to be multi-rooted, rather like a banyan tree, without being deracinated.

There are plenty of good Indian writers in English, and none of us feel we are carrying the burden of being a poster boy.

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!

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