V. S. Naipaul Quotes

• Take it on the chin and move on.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Oppression

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Really, Always

• I’ve been a free man.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Man, Free

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in England

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Novel

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Thought

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  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.

Related Authors

• Wright Morris
• Florence King
• Samuel Johnson
• Phyllis Theroux
• Edwidge Danticat
• Peter Quennell
• Penelope Fitzgerald
• Philip K. Dick
• Charles Johnson
• Mattie Stepanek

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 21st November

Births

• 1844 - Ada Cambridge
• 1971 - Michael Strahan
• 1870 - Alexander Berkman
• 1912 - Eleanor Powell
• 1958 - Rickson Gracie

Deaths

• 1945 - Robert Benchley
• 1969 - Norman Lindsay
• 1959 - Max Baer
• 2000 - Sir Cyril Astley Clarke
• 1922 - Ricardo Flores Magon