From Exploring Karnataka, a photobook published in 1981 by the Government of Karnataka, with pictures by T.S. Satyan and an introduction by H.Y. Sharada Prasad:

“Let us admit, as a distinguished Kannada author, V. Sitaramiah, has pointed out, that we have had our pettinesses and feuds; our limitations of outlook and failures in achievement; our bloodbaths given and taken. Our chieftains have carried off brides from marriage pavilions; our warriors have destroyed men and lands when fiendish fits were on. In their turn, they have been invaded and their capital cities have been razed to the ground or burnt to ashes. The history of all peoples has been much the same and littered with episodes good and not so good. But the long range value preference, the pride and grateful memory of Kannada poets has been, by and large, for tolerance and the arts of peace; for conservation. This is true not of poets alone but the Kannada people as a whole….

“Allied with this distrust of fanaticism and flamboyance is a certain unsparing insistence of self-discipline and style. It is expressed in the numerous stories about Visvesvaraya, in the fastidiousness of Generals Cariappa and Thimmayya, in the philosophical volumes of Professor Hiriyanna and in the dance of Shanta Rao. In its gentler form it can be detected in the lines and brush strokes of K.K. Hebbar, in the glances and drives of G. R. Viswanath, in the meditative aalaap of Mallikarjun Mansoor, and in the prose of R. K. Narayan, an assimilated Mysorean.”