Top 137 Quotes & Sayings by Ruskin Bond

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Indian author Ruskin Bond.
Last updated on November 4, 2024.
Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond is an Anglo Indian author. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, was published in 1956, and it received the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1957. Bond has authored more than 500 short stories, essays, and novels, including 50 books for children. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992 for Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and Padma Bhushan in 2014. He lives with his adopted family in Landour, Mussoorie.

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.
I had a bad habit of falling in love with any girl who was nice to me.
Solitude helps you reflect. — © Ruskin Bond
Solitude helps you reflect.
The ghost story is a popular genre of mine and is particularly adaptable to the visual media.
I have always discouraged young writers from self-publishing, by which I mean going to a vanity publisher and spending your hard earned savings - say, some two-three lakhs - and getting your book printed. It's not published; it's printed!
Ghosts are all around us. Look for them, and you will find them.
One of the very first ghost stories I read - and that was in a forest rest house, where it is a bit scarier - was by M.R. James. He is one of the pioneers of ghost stories. And the book was called 'Ghost Stories Of An Antiquary.'
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'm not very good at writing fantasy or even reading it.
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 fortunately have a good memor, and that helps a lot in the way I write.
I've lived in small rooms, flats, growing plants in pots on window sills. I'd have liked to have had a full-fledged garden with all kinds of flowers and plants. I've never had enough money to buy a big enough garden space.
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. — © Ruskin Bond
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.
I am hopeless with machinery. I could never learn to drive a car except into a wall.
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.
Small places intrigue me. Whenever I tried moving to a larger city, I ran back to the hills.
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.
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.
I find it very lucky to be an Indian and living in India.
There was Uncle Ken of mine about whom I wrote a lot of stories. I can always write stories about uncles and aunts and distant relatives. They have to be distant, though; otherwise, you'll be in trouble.
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.
There will always be books as long as I am mentally capable of it.
Yes, I do seek solitude, but I am never lonely.
I like flowers. In my next life, maybe I can be a gardener.
I'm a pickle fiend. I like all kinds of pickles: garlic pickle, lemon pickle, mango pickle, jackfruit pickle, you name it.
My first, 'Room on the Roof,' was the longest book I've written.
It's nice to have awards from time to time. There was a time when I had to make a living from my writing, and it wasn't always easy. I value awards a lot - and more so if there is a little cash with them!
One has to be ambitious to start writing.
The older you get, the lesser you are bothered by what others think.
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 am a compulsive writer.
I have no real regrets.
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.
Books of exploration have always fascinated me, like somebody going up the Amazon for the first time.
I always look for a bookshop wherever I go.
I wanted to be a tap dancer when I was very young.
Films and books have been intertwined as far as my growing up is concerned.
I don't overwork - a couple of hours a day is fine for me. — © Ruskin Bond
I don't overwork - a couple of hours a day is fine for me.
I have been naturally inclined towards mountains, trees, flowers, and rivers.
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.
When I was growing up, I remember having read all the books in the library. I often tried to emulate my favourite writers.
I was a bookworm in school, and in those days it was easy to get books. Bigger cities had book shops.
I did all kind of jobs to sustain myself. I worked at a grocery store, in the public health department, and what was then Thomas Cook and Sons. The last job was particularly interesting, but I got fired from it.
If I set out to write 'War And Peace' or 'A Suitable Boy,' I'd be miserable.
You may not enjoy loneliness, because loneliness is sad. But solitude is something else; solitude is what you look forward to when you want to be alone, when you want to be with yourself. So, solitude is something we all need from time to time.
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.
Whenever I run out of people to write about, I cook up a few ghosts, or they appear before me.
I won't usually just sit down to write. I'd have done it in my head already. I visualise a story just like a film strip running in my head. I guess that is also a reason why my books have such a visual element to them. And it's what I tell young writers: plan your story ahead.
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.
Many people told me such convincing ghost stories that I felt that there really were ghosts, though I hadn't seen any. And though I still haven't seen a ghost, I feel that they are all around us; we are just not aware of them being there.
I may not have become a good writer, but I managed to make a living out of writing. — © Ruskin Bond
I may not have become a good writer, but I managed to make a living out of writing.
I used to type, but now, typing or working with a computer, I get a stiff neck. So I prefer writing longhand.
I used to consider myself a loner.
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.
Writing for children may have kept me young at heart.
I get inspiration from a lot of things around me - nature, hills, people, and even insects.
Holidays can become tedious without something to read.
The books that I wrote in my late teens and 20s, the little love stories, they were right from the heart.
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 lot of school-going children are familiar with my writing. I am basically very much a children books author.
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