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

V.S. Naipaul

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
One must always try to see the truth of a situation – it makes things universal.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Oneself Situation Truth Universe
If a writer doesn’t generate hostility, he is dead.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Creation Death Writing
All the things that were read to me by my father were stories about things becoming all right.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Father Reading Right Story
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
Writers should provoke disagreement.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Agreement Argument Writing
Many writers tend to write summing-up books at the end of their lives.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Book End Live 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 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
A civilization which has taken over the world cannot be said to be dying.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Civilization Conquer Death World
One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Comedy Deep Moments Writing
If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Fake Intellectual Mistake Quantity Travel Yourself
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
This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Lecture Myself People Reading True
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 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

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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