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Small things start us in new ways of thinking.

V.S. Naipaul

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
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
The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ourselves Punishment True
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

Enough History Ideas Man Need
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
My life is short. I can’t listen to banality.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Life Listening Myself
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
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
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

Affect Calm Destroy Existence History Myself Past People
We cannot understand all the traits we have inherited. Sometimes we can be strangers to ourselves.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Inheritance Ourselves Stranger Understand
After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Ideas Ourselves Possible
Writers should provoke disagreement.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Agreement Argument Writing
Making a book is such a big enterprise.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Big Books Enterprise
The writer is all alone.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Alone One Liner Writing
I’m thought to be a tough writer, but I’m really a softie.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Myself Personality Soft Thinking Tough Writing
I don’t feel I can speak with authority for many other people.
V.S. NAIPAUL

Authority Feeling Myself People Talk Worth

Small things start us in new ways of thinking.

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Small things start us in new ways of thinking.

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