The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.
V.S. NAIPAULSmall things start us in new ways of thinking.
More V.S. Naipaul Quotes
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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.
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The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
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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 things that were read to me by my father were stories about things becoming all right.
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My life is short. I can’t listen to banality.
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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.
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I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.
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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’.
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We cannot understand all the traits we have inherited. Sometimes we can be strangers to ourselves.
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After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.
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Writers should provoke disagreement.
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Making a book is such a big enterprise.
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The writer is all alone.
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I’m thought to be a tough writer, but I’m really a softie.
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I don’t feel I can speak with authority for many other people.
V.S. NAIPAUL