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Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it.

V.S. Naipaul

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

Creation Death Writing
As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother’s house. All children, I suppose, come into the world like that, not knowing who they are.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Beyond Children Home Myself World
I’ve never abandoned the novel.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Abandonment Myself Novel
My life is short. I can’t listen to banality.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Life Listening Myself
After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ideas Ourselves Possible
One must always try to see the truth of a situation – it makes things universal.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Oneself Situation Truth Universe
Home is, I suppose just a child’s idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Children Feeling Home Ideas Night Place Safety
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
If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Fake Intellectual Mistake Quantity Travel Yourself
It is important not to trust people too much.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Important One Liner People Trust
Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Interest People Time
It has had a calamitous effect on converted peoples. To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say ‘my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn’t matter’.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Affect Calm Destroy Existence History Myself Past People
All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Detail Friendship Inspirational Life Mystery Writing
I’m my own writer. My material means I’m entirely separate.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Material Myself Separate Writing
I feel that at any stage of my literary career it could have been said that the last book contained all the others.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Books Career Feeling Myself
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

Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it.

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Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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