black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing – which is never an easy thing to do.

V.S. Naipaul

If a writer doesn’t generate hostility, he is dead.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Creation Death Writing
The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ourselves Punishment True
There are two ways of talking. One is the easy way, where you talk lightly, and the other one is the considered way. The considered way is what I have put my name to.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Easy Light Myself Name Talk Way
Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn’t fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will – with luck – come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise
V.S. NAIPAUL

Books Luck Moments Myself Wait Writing
Many writers tend to write summing-up books at the end of their lives.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Book End Live Writing
The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Aspect City Estate
One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Born Expectation Ideas People Work Yourself
I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Kind Myself People Thinking Writing
It isn’t that there’s no right and wrong here. There’s no right.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Answer Philosophy Right Wrong
After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ideas Ourselves Possible
But everything of value about me is in my books.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Books Myself Value
I’m my own writer. My material means I’m entirely separate.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Material Myself Separate Writing
The Europeans wanted gold and slaves, like everybody else; but at the same time they wanted statues put up to themselves as people who had done good things for the slaves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Gold Goodness Help Slave Time
That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing – which is never an easy thing to do.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Easy Element Myself Surprise Writing
In England people are very proud of being very stupid.
V.S. NAIPAUL

People Proud Stupidity
This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Lecture Myself People Reading True

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing – which is never an easy thing to do.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing – which is never an easy thing to do.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More V.S. Naipaul Quotes