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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

Some writers can only deal with childhood experience, because it’s complete. For another kind of writer, life goes on, and he’s able to keep processing that as well.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Childhood Deal Experience Himself Kind Life Writing
A civilization which has taken over the world cannot be said to be dying.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Civilization Conquer Death World
I still think it’s really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Myself Quality Quite Reading Thinking Wonderful
Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Act Judgement Try Understand Wisdom
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
The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Aspect City Estate
And it was strange, I thought, that sorrow lasts and can make a man look forward to death, but the mood of victory fills a moment and then is over.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Death Man Moments Myself Sadness Sorrow Strange Victory
I don’t feel I can speak with authority for many other people.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Authority Feeling Myself People Talk Worth
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
People come and go all the time; the world has always been in movement.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Movement People Time World
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
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
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
The world is always in movement.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Change Movement One Liner World
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

Fiction Growth Intuition

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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