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An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.

V.S. Naipaul

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
Life doesn’t have a neat beginning and a tidy end; life is always going on. You should begin in the middle and end in the middle, and it should be all there.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Beginning End Life Yourself
Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Freedom Limitation People Possible Vision World
The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Aspect City Estate
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 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
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.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Discover Interest Question Religion Simplicity Thinking
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 only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ourselves Punishment True
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.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Hell Life Patience Prevent Trouble Wait Yourself
I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Kind Myself People Thinking Writing
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
Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn’t fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will – with luck – come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise
V.S. NAIPAUL

Books Luck Moments Myself Wait Writing
My life is short. I can’t listen to banality.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Life Listening Myself
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
It isn’t that there’s no right and wrong here. There’s no right.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Answer Philosophy Right Wrong

An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.

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An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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