V.S. Naipaul

Always Movement World

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What I felt was, if you spend your life just writing fiction, you are going to falsify your material. And the fictional form was going to force you to do things with the material, to dramatize it in a certain way. I thought nonfiction gave one a chance to explore the world, the other world, the world that one didn't know fully.

V.S. Naipaul

Certain CertainWay Chance Explore

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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

African Always Ant Begins

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I came to London. It had become the center of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost.

V.S. Naipaul

Become Came Center Come

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I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

V.S. Naipaul

Am IAm Kind Other

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This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.

V.S. Naipaul

Ask Give Given Lecture

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But everything of value about me is in my books.

V.S. Naipaul

About Books Everything Me

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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

Actual Am Any AnyGivenMoment

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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

Am Doing Easy EasyThing

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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.

V.S. Naipaul

Amount Details Documentation Fascinating

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The biography of a writer - or even the autobiography - will always have this incompleteness.

V.S. Naipaul

Always Autobiography Biography Even

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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

About Beginning Business Define

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V.S. Naipaul

Am Books IAm Say

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Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it. 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

Any Been Before Book

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What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude.

V.S. Naipaul

Attitude General Past Suppose

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The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.

V.S. Naipaul

About Darkness Existed Kind

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We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal.

V.S. Naipaul

About Behind Came Changed

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As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother's house. All children, I suppose, come into the world like that, not knowing who they are.

V.S. Naipaul

Almost AlmostNothing Beyond Child

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One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

V.S. Naipaul

Always Comedy Deepest Hysteria

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The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

V.S. Naipaul

Allow Become Men Nothing

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I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading

V.S. Naipaul

Kind Other People Reading

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V.S. Naipaul

Africa Future NoFuture

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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.

V.S. Naipaul

Know Paragraph Piece Read

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My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.

V.S. Naipaul

Became Behold Editor Feminine

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The longer I live the more convinced I become that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specifi

V.S. Naipaul

Become Convinced Exist Greatest

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My life is short. I can't listen to banality.

V.S. Naipaul

Life LifeIsShort Listen MyLife

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If writers just sit and talk about oppression, they are not going to do much writing.

V.S. Naipaul

About Going Just Much

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In England I am not English, in India I am not Indian. I am chained to the 1,000 square miles that is Trinidad; but I will evade that fate yet.

V.S. Naipaul

Am Chained England English

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

V.S. Naipaul

Autobiography Distort Facts Fiction

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If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.

V.S. Naipaul

Ever Frauds Go Intellectual

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V.S. Naipaul

Abandoned Never Novel

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Great writing can be done in biography, history, art.

V.S. Naipaul

Art Biography Done Great

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I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment

V.S. Naipaul

About Charming Friends Had

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I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.

V.S. Naipaul

Always Craft Equipped Felt

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It's very attractive to people to be a victim. Instead of having to think out the whole situation, about history and your group and what you are doing... if you begin from the point of view of being a victim, you've got it half-made. I mean intellectually.

V.S. Naipaul

About Attractive Begin Being

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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

Converted Culture Destroy Does

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Trinidad may seem complex, but to anyone who knows it, it is a simple, colonial, philistine society.

V.S. Naipaul

Anyone Colonial Complex Knows

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If a writer doesn't generate hostility, he is dead.

V.S. Naipaul

Dead Generate He Hostility

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Writers should provoke disagreement.

V.S. Naipaul

Disagreement Provoke Should Writers

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Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.

V.S. Naipaul

African Kicked Need Only

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I don't feel I can speak with authority for many other people.

V.S. Naipaul

Authority Feel ICan Many

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The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.

V.S. Naipaul

Aspect British City Council

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I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.

V.S. Naipaul

Ancestry Beyond Blurred Cannot

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In England people are very proud of being very stupid.

V.S. Naipaul

Being England People Proud

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It is important not to trust people too much.

V.S. Naipaul

Important Much People Too

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I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.

V.S. Naipaul

Down Feel Letting People

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Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

V.S. Naipaul

Child Feel Home House

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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.

V.S. Naipaul

Always Come Had Home

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I went to India and met some people who had been involved in this guerrilla business, middle-class people who were rather vain and foolish. There was no revolutionary grandeur to it. Nothing.

V.S. Naipaul

Been Business Foolish Grandeur

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V.S. Naipaul

Big Book Enterprise Making

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101 Trinidadian and Tobagonian Quotes

V.S. Naipaul

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 came to London. It had become the center of my world and I had worked hard to come to it. And I was lost.

V.S. Naipaul

I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

V.S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul

But everything of value about me is in my books.

V.S. Naipaul

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

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

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.

V.S. Naipaul

The biography of a writer - or even the autobiography - will always have this incompleteness.

V.S. Naipaul

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

V.S. Naipaul

Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it. 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

What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude.

V.S. Naipaul

The world outside existed in a kind of darkness; and we inquired about nothing.

V.S. Naipaul

We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal.

V.S. Naipaul

As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother's house. All children, I suppose, come into the world like that, not knowing who they are.

V.S. Naipaul

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

I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading

V.S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul

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

My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.

V.S. Naipaul

The longer I live the more convinced I become that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specifi

V.S. Naipaul

My life is short. I can't listen to banality.

V.S. Naipaul

If writers just sit and talk about oppression, they are not going to do much writing.

V.S. Naipaul

In England I am not English, in India I am not Indian. I am chained to the 1,000 square miles that is Trinidad; but I will evade that fate yet.

V.S. Naipaul

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

V.S. Naipaul

If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.

V.S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul

Great writing can be done in biography, history, art.

V.S. Naipaul

I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment

V.S. Naipaul

I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.

V.S. Naipaul

It's very attractive to people to be a victim. Instead of having to think out the whole situation, about history and your group and what you are doing... if you begin from the point of view of being a victim, you've got it half-made. I mean intellectually.

V.S. Naipaul

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

Trinidad may seem complex, but to anyone who knows it, it is a simple, colonial, philistine society.

V.S. Naipaul

If a writer doesn't generate hostility, he is dead.

V.S. Naipaul

Writers should provoke disagreement.

V.S. Naipaul

Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.

V.S. Naipaul

V.S. Naipaul

The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate.