Vikram Seth Quotes

Shakespeare wrote about what was happening during the time; it still relates to us now.

My work as a whole is about excavating and shining a light on pieces of history that not only need to be seen and heard, but that can also add to the conversation about what's going on now.

My assignment is what every writer's assignment is: tell the truth of his own time.

While writing books about the past, I think about the present. It's not intentional, but somehow my books end up being written under the sign of a political mood.

I feel that I belong to the 19th century. Some composers' music is very topical. It almost says, 'This is about what I read in newspapers yesterday.' Not mine.

I don't mind my work being a record of the time it was written in.

I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for 'then' but a message for 'now.'

The hazard of confessional books is how fast the world moves on while they're written.

What I'm passionate about is History, and politics interest me only insofar as it is the cross-section of History in the present.

Most of the films that I've ever really responded to are ones that I feel were really involved in their times.

In 'The Plato Papers' I wanted to get another perspective on the present moment by extrapolating into the distant future. So in that sense, there's a definite similarity of purpose between a book set in the future and a book set in the past.

You can learn as much about the history from reading about the present as you can vice versa, that is learning about the present through history, which is what I do for a living.

I think a biography is only as interesting as the lives and times it illuminates.

Observe that it is a great error to believe that all mediums of art are not closely tied to their time.

Those old enough to write their memoirs should not comment on contemporary issues.

The electronic media are not very good at history. It is a world of the eternal now.

Ancient histories provide windows to knowing current affairs.

It would be well if, in studying the past, we could always bear in mind the problems of the present

History is a dubious guide to current politics.

I see things about the present more clearly when I'm looking through the frame of the past: I think it's very hard to assess the present moment that we are in.

There is something a little vulgar about writing a novel that is too close to the present, too concerned with current events, too eager to critique technological advancements.

There seems to be an interest in connecting the history of the past to the present and asking whether things have really changed. Films like 'The Contender' and 'Bulworth' seem quaint compared with Trump!

I'm interested in teasing out the contemporary issues in what I'm working on, however old the piece might be, whenever I'm working on it.

Why shouldn't poetry address what happened yesterday and be published in the newspaper?

Characters work really well when they're reflective of the times that they're operating in.