Ruskin Bond

“I've noticed people in India have developed a habit of hugging around people. I don't understand it now. I wanted to be hugged when I was young. Now, if someone wants to hug me, I feel only claustrophobic.”

“I may not have become a good writer, but I managed to make a living out of writing.”

“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.”

“I think every writer wants future generations to read what he has written.”

“I always look for a bookshop wherever I go.”

“I am a compulsive writer.”

“Books of exploration have always fascinated me, like somebody going up the Amazon for the first time.”

“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.”

“In my twenties, I wrote a lot of romantic stories in which I always lost the girl.”

“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.”

“...for everytime I see the sky I'm aware of belonging to the universe than to just one corner of the earth.”

“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.”

“I wanted to be a tap dancer when I was very young.”

“I like flowers. In my next life, maybe I can be a gardener.”

“Writing is the only thing I am good for.”

“I find it very lucky to be an Indian and living in India.”

“I liked the old comic books, especially the funny ones like 'Popeye' and 'Beetle Bailey.'”

“Whenever I run out of people to write about, I cook up a few ghosts, or they appear before me.”

“I have no real regrets.”

“To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast”