Upamanyu Chatterjee Quotes

I cannot always write at the same time, in the same place. I work, travel and have a vigorous family life. If I'm stranded in an airport lobby - I write. If I have to wait in a doctor's office - I write. If I have a morning or evening to myself - I write.

I work on my novels wherever I have a PC, and I have four or five places around the world where I do have a PC. These days you can just slip a little flash drive into your top pocket, fly for 12 hours, come to another place, plug it into a computer and you are away again.

I'm as much my own master as anyone can be, without being the master of others. I can write anywhere - all I need is a couple of hours of solitude and a computer, and I can write a chapter. Since my work is portable, I can live anywhere I like.

I love writing with pen and paper; I hate technology.

I'm very primitive; I write with a pen.

I love writing in longhand. Writing in longhand, I think, is a marvelous thing to do for a writer these days. If you have a notebook and a nice pen you can go off somewhere, you can write that's solar powered. You can drop it or get it wet and pretty much all of your work will continue to be there. If you suddenly decide to look up a word or check a reference you will not look up four hours later, blinking, finding yourself somehow in the middle of an Ebay auction you never had any plans to be part of.

I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it's done in handwriting.

But the guitar, when you think about it, is the most versatile, really. I mean you can pick it up and take it with you wherever you go.

I don't use a computer in writing at all. I'm sort of old-fashioned about it.

I don't write directly on to the computer because I don't think well facing forward with fingers on a keyboard. I think better looking down holding a pen. And the concentration quotient of pen and paper is higher than when I'm moving words around on screen.

I can write anywhere.

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.

I like marketplaces. I like train stations; I like being in trains. I like airports. I like walking down the street with a pen in my hand, writing, writing, writing.

I'm not a big gadget guy. When I write, I'll do the whole thing by hand, and then I'll put it into the computer.

I needed to create something I could take with me wherever I went.

I write with a pen and paper. Never on a laptop.

I just like being all over the place and writing whatever comes to mind. Having the tools? It's such a gift.

I don't read anything electronically. I don't write electronically, either - except e-mails to my family and friends. I write in longhand. I have always written first drafts by hand, but I used to write subsequent drafts and insert pages on a typewriter.

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair.

Life throws up enough road blocks to keep you from writing; you can't be adding to them yourself by saying you can only write in one specific place. I'm in New York half the time and Texas half the time, and I work wherever - in my computer bag I have some foam ear plugs that I can put in.

To read a paper book is another experience: you can do it on a ship, on the branch of a tree, on your bed, even if there is a blackout.

I have my little craft bag that I bring with me to set everywhere I go.

I think the best part about music is that you can do it anywhere at any time and it's always with you.

We're really lucky because we have a portable studio, which enables us to work wherever we like. There is some extra work involved in setting everything up, but you can find a lot of magic and inspiration in being free to go somewhere completely different.

I can fake decent penmanship, but generally, it's really just terrible. And, unfortunately for me, maybe fortunately for the reader, it's very often illegible. If I get an idea, and if I do remember to write it down, which is rare, I write in such a way that I can't read a letter.