I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time. V. S. Naipaul More Quotes by V. S. Naipaul More Quotes From V. S. Naipaul 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 childhood able goes-on 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 intuition writing ideas The writer is all alone. V. S. Naipaul all-alone I still think it's really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness. V. S. Naipaul quality wonderful thinking The past has to be seen to be dead; or the past will kill. V. S. Naipaul past To this day, if you ask me how I became a writer, I cannot give you an answer. To this day, if you ask me how a book is written, I cannot answer. For long periods, if I didn't know that somehow in the past I had written a book, I would have given up. V. S. Naipaul long book past There are two ways of talking. One is the easy way, where you talk lightly, and the other one is the considered way. The considered way is what I have put my name to. V. S. Naipaul names talking two It is important not to trust people too much. V. S. Naipaul too-much important people 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 fate india squares Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand. V. S. Naipaul judgment trying Many writers tend to write summing-up books at the end of their lives. V. S. Naipaul ends writing book The ancillary aspect of every British city now is the council estate. V. S. Naipaul estates british cities In England people are very proud of being very stupid. V. S. Naipaul proud stupid people It was a good place for getting lost in, a city no one ever knew, a city explored from the neutral heart outward, until after many years, it defined itself into a jumble of clearings separated by stretches of the unknown, through which the narrowest of paths had been cut. V. S. Naipaul cutting heart years His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read. V. S. Naipaul ignorance 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 honor law ideas To read a newspaper for the first time is like coming into a film that has been on for an hour. Newspapers are like serials. To understand them you have to take knowledge to them; the knowledge that serves best is the knowledge provided by the newspaper itself. V. S. Naipaul hours film firsts 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 documentation details writing A civilization which has taken over the world cannot be said to be dying. V. S. Naipaul dying taken civilization It isn't that there's no right and wrong here. There's no right. V. S. Naipaul
