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. NAIPAULIt is important not to trust people too much.
More V.S. Naipaul Quotes
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Making a book is such a big enterprise.
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I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people’s lands.
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When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
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The Europeans wanted gold and slaves, like everybody else; but at the same time they wanted statues put up to themselves as people who had done good things for the slaves.
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Life is a helluva thing. You can see trouble coming and you can’t do a damn thing to prevent it coming. You just got to sit and watch and wait.
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Ignorant people in preppy clothes are more dangerous to America than oil embargoes.
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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.
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All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.
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I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.
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I could meet dreadful people and end up seeing the world through their eyes, seeing their frailties, their needs.
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I became very interested in the Islamic question, and thought I would try to understand it from the roots, ask very simple questions and somehow make a narrative of that discovery.
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It isn’t that there’s no right and wrong here. There’s no right.
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All cultures have been mingled forever.
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It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That’s where the mischief starts. That’s where everything starts unravelling.
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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