Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Small places intrigue me. Whenever I tried moving to a larger city, I ran back to the hills.
The ghost story is a popular genre of mine and is particularly adaptable to the visual media.
To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast
There are two kinds of authors - subjective and objective. Introverts are more inward looking.
Whenever I run out of people to write about, I cook up a few ghosts, or they appear before me.
I have an excellent memory - for books and authors, that is. I remember all the books I've read.
Books of exploration have always fascinated me, like somebody going up the Amazon for the first time.
I was a bookworm in school, and in those days it was easy to get books. Bigger cities had book shops.
The books that I wrote in my late teens and 20s, the little love stories, they were right from the heart.
I used to type, but now, typing or working with a computer, I get a stiff neck. So I prefer writing longhand.
A lot of school-going children are familiar with my writing. I am basically very much a children books author.
I use a ball pen because fountain pens are clumsy, and I get ink all over my fingers by the time I finish with it.
I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy.
If you live in America, you need a gun, and I am not very fast with a gun, so I think I would walk out very quickly.
I'm a pickle fiend. I like all kinds of pickles: garlic pickle, lemon pickle, mango pickle, jackfruit pickle, you name it.
When I was growing up, I remember having read all the books in the library. I often tried to emulate my favourite writers.
If I'm really immersed in a story, I try to finish it in a few days. If it's a longer work, then it would take a few months.
To return to my own trees, I went among them often, acknowledging their presence with a touch of my hand against their trunks.
I suppose in the long run, it's the good work that outlasts the shoddy work, but there's enough room for all kinds of writing.
No, I don't want to be a brand. Brand means I cannot go out for a quiet walk without tourists and fans constantly following me.
I am a storyteller from a personal viewpoint. When I run out of people I invent ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts. Never saw one.
It is always the same with mountains. Once you have lived with them for any length of time, you belong to them. There is no escape.
I enjoy writing personal essays in the way of Charles Lamb because it goes back to the school days when I was good in writing essays.
I wrote 'Time Stops at Shamli' in 1956, shortly after 'The Room on the Roof' was published, and I couldn't find anyone to publish it.
I have come to believe that the best kind of walk, or journey, is the one in which you have no particular destination when you set out.
I keep a journal, like many writers do. It helps in writing a story, as you can use an incident from the journal and put in your story.
A few years after my father's death, my mother sent me to the United Kingdom for 'better prospects' in 1951. Those four years were not easy.
I've never written specifically for children as such. I write to please myself, and if it is suitable, it gets printed as a children's book.
When you write a novel you have to live with the characters for a long time. So I prefer short stories. I never wrote anything more than 250 pages.
All my works over the years have been autobiographical in the sense they reflect some part of my life, although I have fictionalised them to an extent.
From the age of 17 through my 20s, I was living on my own, so sometimes I wouldn't even tell anybody it was my birthday. It was not a big thing for me.
My desk is right next to my bed. So I sit on my bed. I write in a big notebook which is on the desk. And if I feel drowsy, I just have to slide into bed.
As a schoolboy, I loved Charles Dickens. His 'David Copperfield' has had the strongest influence on me - I looked up to David Copperfield as a role model.
In India, not enough importance is given to writing for children. And what could be more important than the enrichment of young minds with great literature?
The transition from an English father to a Punjabi stepfather demanded an adjustment that was far from easy for a 10-year-old boy who had just lost his father.
I think I'm from the 18th century, not even the 19th. I don't even use a typewriter. I prefer longhand, and that's how I submit my manuscripts to my publishers.
Occasionally, I have written about stories related to crime, but I have never attempted a traditional detective story. So I want to write a true detective story.
Children haven't changed - the world around them has. Their basic natures haven't changed. They like ice creams. They like to have fun, play games if they get space.
Instead of becoming a great shikari, as my mother and stepfather might have wished, I had become an incurable bookworm and was to remain one for the rest of my life.
Yes, I'd love to have a garden of my own--spacious, and full of everything that is fragrant and flowering. But if I don't succeed, never mind--I've still got the dream.
When I ventured into writing at the age of 17, I wanted to be a good and successful writer. I just wanted to write good stuff - poems, prose, stories, essays, everything.
Respect the language in which you write. Be kind, develop good vocabulary, and be creative in writing beautiful sentences. Your prose should be your poetry when you write.
In the '50s, '60s, '70s, before television became easily accessible, even the most well-known writers were not recognised. The writers remained mostly an anonymous lot then.
My mother wanted me to join the Indian army, as the army was seen as a decent and respectable career to have. I shocked my mother by telling her that I wanted to be a writer.
For the film 'Saat Khoon Maaf,' which was adapted from my story 'Susanna's Seven Husbands,' I did collaborate on the screenplay. I even took a small role in the film, of a priest.
Jokes apart, I, like many other, am looking for strong and stable government. I don't want any chaotic political situation where the elected government is being toppled frequently.
Normally writers do not talk much,because they are saving their conversations for the readers of their book- those invisible listeners with whom we wish to strike a sympathetic chord.
Happiness is an elusive state of mind not to be gained by clumsy pursuit.It is given to those who do not sue for it:to be unconcerned about a desired good is probably the only way to possess it.
I wouldn't want a film to be made on my life, because I suppose I would only want them to show all the good things about me and hide the awful things, and that wouldn't be a very honest biopic, no?
The Nehru years were rather very peaceful years. A lot happened in those years: dams were built, five-year plans were made, Chandigarh was built in front of my eyes. Those were the years I grew up in.