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But everything of value about me is in my books.

V.S. Naipaul

We cannot understand all the traits we have inherited. Sometimes we can be strangers to ourselves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Inheritance Ourselves Stranger Understand
Men need history; it helps them to have an idea of who they are. But history, like sanctity, can reside in the heart; it is enough that there is something there.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Enough History Ideas Man Need
In England people are very proud of being very stupid.
V.S. NAIPAUL

People Proud Stupidity
I don’t feel I can speak with authority for many other people.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Authority Feeling Myself People Talk Worth
I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ideas Intuition Myself Start Trust Understand Writing
Life is a helluva thing. You can see trouble coming and you can’t do a damn thing to prevent it coming. You just got to sit and watch and wait.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Hell Life Patience Prevent Trouble Wait Yourself
The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ourselves Punishment True
I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people’s lands.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Born Hands Home Myself People Search
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.
V.S. NAIPAUL

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

Creation Death Writing
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
Writing has to support itself.
V.S. NAIPAUL

One Liner Support Writing
I’m my own writer. My material means I’m entirely separate.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Material Myself Separate Writing
In the beginning, before the arrival of the white men, I had considered myself neutral. I had wanted neither side to win, neither the army nor the rebels. As it turned out, both sides lost.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Beginning Lost Man Myself Side White Win
An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Fact Fiction Lying Writing
The family feuds or the village feuds often had to do with an idea of honor. Perhaps it was a peasant idea; perhaps this idea of honor is especially important to a society without recourse to law or without confidence in law.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Confidence Family Fight Ideas Important Law Respect Society

But everything of value about me is in my books.

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But everything of value about me is in my books.

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