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. NAIPAULWriting has to support itself.
More V.S. Naipaul Quotes
-
-
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 -
I feel that at any stage of my literary career it could have been said that the last book contained all the others.
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 -
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 -
You can’t deny what you’ve learned; you can’t deny your travels; you can’t deny the nature of your life.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
A civilization which has taken over the world cannot be said to be dying.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
I don’t feel I can speak with authority for many other people.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
My life is short. I can’t listen to banality.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
You need someone to see what you’ve done, to read it and to understand it and to appreciate what’s gone into it.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
Argentine political life is like the life of an ant community or an African forest tribe: full of events, full of crisis and deaths, but life is always cyclical, and the year ends as it begins.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
I will say I am the sum of my books.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
I’m thought to be a tough writer, but I’m really a softie.
V.S. NAIPAUL -
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