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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

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
It is important not to trust people too much.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Important One Liner People Trust
I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ancestor Family Father Mom Myself
It was a good place for getting lost in, a city no one ever knew, a city explored from the neutral heart outward, until after many years, it defined itself into a jumble of clearings separated by stretches of the unknown, through which the narrowest of paths had been cut.
V.S. NAIPAUL

City Goodness Heart Lost Path Place Separate Unknown
I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Feeling People Time Yourself
I don’t feel I can speak with authority for many other people.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Authority Feeling Myself People Talk Worth
Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Freedom Limitation People Possible Vision World
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
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 you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don’t express your disregard for the essence of the culture. It’s a form of aggression.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Country Culture Decision Essence Expression Law Live Yourself
Many writers tend to write summing-up books at the end of their lives.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Book End Live Writing
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
The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Death Kill Past See
The melancholy thing about the world is that it is full of stupid people; and the world is run for the benefit of the stupid and common.
V.S. NAIPAUL

People Sadness Stupidity World
I became very interested in the Islamic question, and thought I would try to understand it from the roots, ask very simple questions and somehow make a narrative of that discovery.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Discover Interest Question Religion Simplicity Thinking

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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