Vikram Seth Quotes

I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.

Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it's the transparency that counts.

I aim to be translucent, so you don't notice the words, just their meaning. I haven't much insight into people's motivations.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

I'd rather not ever make anything overly simple just because I'm scared people won't get it.

I don't mind hidden depths but I insist that there be a surface.

I admire writers who can make complicated things simple, but my own talent has been to make simple things complicated.

The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.

What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.

In labouring to be concise, I become obscure.

Truth is something which can't be told in a few words. Those who simplify the universe only reduce the expansion of its meaning.

I never want to dumb it down. If there's any simplification, it's just a simplification to make sure that the reader understands the point that the character is trying to make.

It is when I struggle to be brief that I become obscure.

It is the nature of truth in general, as of some ores in particular, to be richest when most superficial.

Making a film confusing does not make it intelligent.

Some movies are entirely too heavy, and some movies have no meat in them.

Fact is richer than diction.

Clear writers, like fountains, do not seem so deep as they are; the turbid look the most profound.

Any effort... to make the obscure obvious is likely to be unappealing, for the penalty of failure is confusion while the reward of success is banality.

It's really a trade-off: you're always having to decide whether you're going to say the more ambitious thing, and lose a little clarity - or are you going to say something really clearly, and sacrifice a little nuance? Get too obscure, and you sound like a pretentious asshole; go overboard with the clarity, and you sound like you're talking down to your audience, or like you yourself are a reductive simpleton.

There's more to life than making shallow, fairly obvious observations.

Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.

Being incomprehensible offers unparalleled protection against having nothing to say...but writing with simplicity requires courage, for there is a danger that one will be overlooked, dismissed as simpleminded by those with a tenacious belief that the impassable prose is a hallmark of intelligence.

Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there.