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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

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
The first 50 years of the cinema were absolutely great years. Original minds were at work establishing the ways to tell a story. And what is happening now is a copying, a pastiche-ing of what was done by great men.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Establishment Greatness Imitation Man Mindset Movie Original Story Time
I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Kind Myself People Thinking Writing
To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn’t know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Book Day Myself Past 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
In England people are very proud of being very stupid.
V.S. NAIPAUL

People Proud Stupidity
The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Man Place World Worth
Writers should provoke disagreement.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Agreement Argument 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
Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Act Judgement Try Understand Wisdom
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 is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That’s where the mischief starts. That’s where everything starts unravelling.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ideal Reveal Start View World Wrong
When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Learning Myself Strength Strong Writing
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 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
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

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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