Quotes by V. S. Naipaul - AI Generated Quotes

V. S. Naipaul

The writer is all alone.

-V. S. Naipaul

alone

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

-V. S. Naipaul

alone

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

-V. S. Naipaul

attitude

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

business

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

business

Some writers can only deal with childhood experience, because it's complete. For another kind of writer, life goes on, and he's able to keep processing that as well.

-V. S. Naipaul

experience

Africa has no future.

-V. S. Naipaul

future

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

history

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

-V. S. Naipaul

history

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

history

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

home

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

home

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

-V. S. Naipaul

society

When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.

-V. S. Naipaul

strength

It is important not to trust people too much.

-V. S. Naipaul

trust

V. S. Naipaul

The writer is all alone.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

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

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.

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.

Some writers can only deal with childhood experience, because it's complete. For another kind of writer, life goes on, and he's able to keep processing that as well.

Africa has no future.

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.

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

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.'

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

I always knew who I was and where I had come from. I was not looking for a home in other people's lands.

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

When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.

It is important not to trust people too much.

One must always try to see the truth of a situation - it makes things universal.

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