Vikram Seth

"Some men like Jack and some like Jill Im glad I like them both but still I wonder if this freewheeling Really is an enlightened thing, Or is its greater scope a sign Of deviance from some party line? In the strict ranks of Gay and Straight What is my status: Stray? Or Great?"

"Ten hostages is terrorism; A million, and its strategy. To ban books is fanaticism; To threaten in totality All culture and all civilization, All humankind and all creation, This is a task of decorous skill And needs high statesmanship and will."

"[T]hink of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself."

"You too will marry a boy I choose, said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter. Lata avoided the maternal imperative by looking around the great lamp-lit garden of Prem Nivas. The wedding-guests were gathered on the lawn. Hmm, she said. This annoyed her mother further."

"In lifes brief game to be a winner A man must have...oh yes, above All else, of course, someone to love."

"Workers of Lungless Labs—when dying Will you be proud you were midwife To implements exemplifying Assault against the heart of life? If you had scruples, you betrayed them. What pastoral response acquits Those who made ovens for Auschwitz? You knew their purpose, yet you made them. Indeed, its said that the banality Of evil is its greatest shock. It jokes, it punches its time clock, Plays with its kids. The triviality Of slaughtering millions cant impinge Upon its peace, or make it cringe."