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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• 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 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

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  Tags in Literature, Friends

• I grew up in a small place and left it when I was quite young and entered the bigger world.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Grew, Place

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

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Authority

• I could meet dreadful people and end up seeing the world through their eyes, seeing their frailties, their needs.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in World

• and thought I would try to understand it from the roots, ask very simple questions and somehow make a narrative of that discovery.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Try, Thought

• 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

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  Tags in Knew

• 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

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  Tags in Home, Idea

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

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Art, History

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

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Autobiography

• All the things that were read to me by my father were stories about things becoming all right.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Read, Things

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

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Need

• Africa is not a fun place, you know. A fun place is somewhere that lifts the spirits, that cossets the senses. I don’t think that can be said of the Africa I traveled in.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fun

• Africa has no future.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Future

• A civilization which has taken over the world cannot be said to be dying.

  V. S. Naipaul

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in World, Civilization

• A cat only has itself.

  V. S. Naipaul

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  Tags in Cat

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 - 13th November

Births

• 1969 - Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• 1947 - Joseph Anthony Mantegna Jr
• 1850 - Robert Louis Stevenson
• 1935 - Tom Atkins
• 1963 - Vinny Testaverde

Deaths

• 1975 - R. C. Sherriff
• 1963 - Margaret Alice Murray
• 1861 - Arthur Hugh Clough
• 2005 - Vine Deloria Jr
• 1974 - Vittorio De Sica