Alok Mishra > Quotes

“Focus on what you are and what you can rather than what others aren't & can't. You have to win; they don't necessarily have to lose for you!”
― Alok Mishra

“Firm was my resolve
and fragile was my heart.
I saw many ends and many a start.”
― Alok Mishra, Moving for Moksha

“A man is made of emotions,
largely, and intellect – wit,
humour, rationale and that's it?
No! A man is the rob that hides a soul”
― Alok Mishra, Moving for Moksha

“Sometimes by water
'and sometimes by the wind,
'my random lines on sand will be
'erased. What am I now? A ruddy rage?
'He said losing and winning matters not at all!
'He told! Unbecoming is a part of becoming again...”
― Alok Mishra, Moving for Moksha

“from him we come
into him we go
in between, we see
what he decides to show.”
― Alok Mishra, Moving for Moksha

“A poet not only has to observe but also absorb all the emotions objectively in order to express them in verse. Only a calm and detached mind can observe and absorb at the same time. If you participate, you may find the poetic output tilted towards your bias.”
― Alok Mishra

“Personal angst, agony, anger, anxiety and pleasure might produce good poetry. However, to create the best, as many poets have expressed in the past, these personal experiences have to be forged with imagery and wisdom to find a universal resonance.”
― Alok Mishra

“Any poet may find the most profound themes scattered along the path. Observation, if passionate, however, might debauch the deepest of themes.”
― Alok Mishra

“A great literary classic should not require an introductory essay and ten pages of footnotes to be understood. It should require a human heart and a curious mind.”
― Alok Mishra

“This observation, understanding, and appreciation, when combined with the excellence of poetic expression, produce the best poetry, steeped in poetic truth and served with a detached attitude that readers will find relatable, possibly universal, and also long-lasting, if not everlasting.”
― Alok Mishra

“Loneliness is a passive state. It is a compulsion when you are left on your own by others. Solitude, on the other hand, is a fully conscious choice that you make.”
― Alok Mishra

“Solitude has the potential to bring the best thoughts to you. When you are not involved in the emotional, entangled in the sentimental, and invested in the intellectual, you have the opportunity to assess everything from the outside.”
― Alok Mishra

“Solitude, when opted for by one after having a comprehensive experience of the world, makes the ground fertile for the rare union of wisdom and rhythm to generate some quality poetry!”
― Alok Mishra

“The pursuit of wisdom often leads down the path of solitude.”
― Alok Mishra

“Only a cold-hearted storyteller can narrate the warm exchanges of emotionally charged moments with conviction and accuracy!”
― Alok Mishra

“Solitude is a powerful tool; the master who uses this tool must have courage, conviction, experience and vision!”
― Alok Mishra

“Academic criticism often focuses on pleasing the examiners for various purposes. It lacks the aesthetic design, the nobility of purpose and the freedom to touch emotional and humane aspects of the literary work that appeal to the senses rather than the intellectual faculty.”
― Alok Mishra

“Literary criticism, to be precise, and when pursued beyond the boundaries of academic jargon, directly serves the collective consciousness of humanity! It should be carried out to encourage mass participation in the perusal of serious literature or to find seriousness even in the most playfully written literary works. Extending the hypothesis, every author has a thread or two hidden to conceal the life lessons that are layered beneath the entertaining episodes in the storyline. Readers, at large, given their busy and callous lifestyle bereaved of the aesthetic values, may conveniently ignore toiling to reveal those layers; it is, therefore, incumbent upon literary critics to make it happen!”
― Alok Mishra

“Poetry is the rhythm composed in solitude and distributed to the masses.”
― Alok Mishra

“Only if I knew
that knowing it would bring
a burden I could seldom carry
and ferry among those I know,
only to be rejected.
Who knows what I know?
Do I know if they know?
Who knows all those who know?”
― Alok Mishra, Thoughts Between Life and Death

“When put to the best use, poetry has not only the power to stir one’s emotions and thoughts, but also the soul itself!”
― Alok Mishra

“In the beginning, poets make their best efforts to fit words into their rhyme and lyric. However, as time passes and the ink mystifies, poets tend to let their thoughts conjure a rhyme in tune with the extraordinary struggles of ordinary life.”
― Alok Mishra

“Every profound literary work is a bridge between what we are and what we may become, not just as individuals, but as a collective conscience.”
― Alok Mishra

“A new beginning is an illusion.
We continue.”
― Alok Mishra

“Philosophy eulogises death, perturbs lives.”
― Alok Mishra

“The true critic and the true reader are inextricably bound. They both recognise that literature is not just about plot or character or rhythm or rhyme. It is about meaning. It is about impact. It is about transformation.”
― Alok Mishra

“It is not the quantity of reading but the quality of engagement that defines literary worth.”
― Alok Mishra

“Meaningful literary criticism is like penance to please Bhagwan Shiva and ask for wisdom for the world instead of material things for oneself when God appears! Such is the spiritual gravity of deep, reflective engagement with literature.”
― Alok Mishra

“The modern reader must ask: what do I want from literature? Do I merely seek comfort, entertainment, prestige, or am I in search of something nobler—wisdom, empathy, truth? The way we read ultimately shapes who we are. And who we are determines what kind of world we wish to build.”
― Alok Mishra

“Sadly, but certainly, a promising genre of literature in poetry that began with pomp and a loud thud, a banger and an emphatic entry in the public domain with so many expectations, has been circumambulating the corridors of university classrooms and the decision war-rooms of the government-funded and apparently biased award bodies.”
― Alok Mishra