A Suitable Boy is a novel by Vikram Seth written in 1993 and it is about family, political issues, and more. Many quotes in the book are famous. Now because of the series adaptation of the novel many are reading the novel. The story is set in Brahmpur. It mainly focuses on a girl named Lata and her mother’s efforts to find her a suitable boy. However, Lata is a girl who loves freedom and she wants to make her life’s decisions on her own. She meets three men in her life and struggles to find a suitable mate between them. In the end, she finds the man who suits her. Read the book and watch the series “A Suitable Boy”.
Here are some of the quotes from “A Suitable Boy” you will like to use in your day to day life.
1. “Think of many things. Never place your happiness in one person’s power. Be just to yourself.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
2. “She was quite pretty too in those days; indeed, perhaps she still was. But for some reason none of her boyfriends remained boyfriends for long. She had a very decided personality and fairly soon took to telling them what they should do with their lives and studies and work. She began to mother them or perhaps brother them (since she was something of a tomboy) – and this sooner or later took the edge off their romantic excitement. They even began to find her vivacity over-powering, and sooner or later edged away from her – with guilt on their side and pain on hers. This was a great pity, for Kalpana Gaur was a lively, affectionate, and intelligent woman, and deserved some recompense for the help and happiness she gave others”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
3. “But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they’re bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they’re good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
4. “Man without life companion is either god or beast.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
5. “You can’t blame her,’ said Amit. ‘After a life so full of tragedy anyone would become hard.’ ‘What tragedy?’ asked Mrs. Chatterji. ‘Well, when she was four,’ said Amit, ‘her mother slapped her–it was quite traumatic–and then things went on in that vein. When she was twelve she came in second in an exam…It hardens you.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
6. “And an equation is the same whether it’s written in red or green ink”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
7. “She had dispersed. She was the garden at Prem Nivas (soon to be entered into the annual Flower Show), she was Veena’s love of music, Pran’s asthma, Maan’s generosity, the survival of some refugees four years ago, the neem leaves that would preserve quilts stored in the great zinc trunks of Prem Nivas, the moulting feather of some pond-heron, a small unrung brass bell, the memory of decency in an indecent time, the temperament of Bhaskar’s great-grandchildren. Indeed, for all the Minsisster of Revenue’s impatience with her, she was his regret. And it was right that she should continue to be so, for he should have treated her better while she lived, the poor, ignorant, grieving fool.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
8. “Of course, the greater one’s need, the greater one’s propensity to be mesmerized.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
9. “Every object strives for its proper place. A book seeks to be near its truest admirer. Just as this helpless moth seeks to be near the candle that infatuates him.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy
10. “The ifs and buts of history…form an insubstantial if intoxicating diet.”
Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy