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

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
All cultures have been mingled forever.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Culture Forever One Liner
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
The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ourselves Punishment True
The reason is that they define how I have gone about my business. I have trusted to intuition. I did it at the beginning. I do it even now. I have no idea how things might turn out, where in my writing I might go next.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Beginning Business Intuition Myself Reason
The world is always in movement.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Change Movement One Liner World
My life is short. I can’t listen to banality.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Life Listening Myself
The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Darkness Existence Kind World
But everything of value about me is in my books.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Books Myself Value
Ignorant people in preppy clothes are more dangerous to America than oil embargoes.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Appearance Clothes Dangerous Ignorance People
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
I have always moved by intuition alone. I have no system, literary or political. I have no guiding political idea.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Alone Guidance Ideas Intuition Politics System
If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Fake Intellectual Mistake Quantity Travel Yourself
I’m my own writer. My material means I’m entirely separate.
V.S. NAIPAUL

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

Creation Death Writing

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