V. S. Naipaul Quotes

• Take it on the chin and move on.

  V. S. Naipaul

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• I do not regard the knighthood as a social accomplishment.

  V. S. Naipaul

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• All that I know of our history and the history of the Indian Ocean I have got from books written by Europeans… Without Europeans, I feel, all our past would have been washed away, like the scuff marks of fishermen on the beach.

  V. S. Naipaul

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• Worse, to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one’s portion of the earth; to have lived and died as one had been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated.

  V. S. Naipaul

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• Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Judgement, Act

• It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That’s where the mischief starts. That’s where everything starts unravelling.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Politics

• I have a very small public.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Public, Small

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Mother

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

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Oppression

• I’m the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in People, Kind

• 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

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  Tags in Really, Always

• I’ve been a free man.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Man, Free

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

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in People, Feel

• 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

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  Tags in People, Attractive

• 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

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  Tags in England

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

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Generate

• 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

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  Tags in Novel

• I’m thought to be a tough writer, but I’m really a softie.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Thought

• In England people are very proud of being very stupid.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in People, England

• 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

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  Tags in People, Met

V. S. Naipaul (88)

Birth:	17th August, 1932
Nationality:	British, Trinidadian
Profession:	Essayist, Novelist

About

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad is a Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Trinidadian heritage of Kanyakubja Brahmin known for his novels focusing on the legacy of the British Empire's colonialism. He has also written works of non-fiction, such as travel writing and essays.

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Today's Anniversary - 22nd December

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