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Vikram Chandra Quotes

The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world.

The world is a story we tell ourselves about the world.

Vikram Chandra
Stories, World

When you're a writer, sometimes you have to spend time poking at a part of yourself that normal, sane people leave alone.

Vikram Chandra
People, Normal, Sometimes

Ask him why there are hypocrites in the world.' 'Because it is hard to bear the happiness of others.' 'When are we happy?' 'When we desire nothing and realize that possession is only momentary, and so are forever playing.' 'What is regret?' 'To realize that one has spent one's life worrying about the future.' 'What is sorrow?' 'To long for the past.' 'What is the highest pleasure?' 'To hear a good story.

Vikram Chandra
Regret, Hypocrite, Past
Vikram Chandra (2011). “Red Earth and Pouring Rain”, p.365, Faber & Faber

I think the first time you have to change code you’ve written previously, to add features or remove a bug, you realize that you could have done it better in the first place, that you could have found an architecture that would make it easier to transform and grow the code. And this is terribly seductive—you’re not just building a solution to a problem, you’re potentially building a beautiful solution, with ‘beautiful’ here being defined here by an aesthetics of present and future functionality. This can be a trap.

Vikram Chandra
Beautiful, Thinking, Seductive

I was writing fiction steadily, but I found that the stark determinisms of code were a welcome relief from the ambiguities of literary narrative.

Vikram Chandra
Writing, Relief, Fiction
Vikram Chandra (2013). “Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software”, p.22, Faber & Faber

And so I began to read,' Sorkar said. 'And at first the complete works were like a jungle, the language was quicksand. Metaphors turned beneath my feet and became biting snakes, similes fled from my grasp like frightened deer, taking all meaning with them. All was alien, and amidst the hanging, entangling creepers of this foreign grammar, all sound became a cacophany. I feared for myself, for my health and sanity, but then I thought of my purpose, of where I was and who I was, of pain and I pressed on.

Vikram Chandra
Pain, Snakes, Feet
Vikram Chandra (2011). “Red Earth and Pouring Rain”, p.277, Faber & Faber

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