S. Naipaul
S. Naipaul
should provoking disagreement
Writers should provoke disagreement.
reading thinking people
I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.
grief dirty book
My grief is that the publishing world, the book writing world is an extraordinary shoddy, dirty, dingy world.
editors feminine publishers
My publisher, who was so good as a taster and editor, when she became a writer, lo and behold, it was all this feminine tosh.
wall ideas decision
I often wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn't made that decision. I suppose I would have sunk. I suppose I would have found some kind of hole and tried to hide or pass. After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities. I would have hidden in my hole and been crippled by my sentimentality, doing what I was doing, and doing it well, but always looking for the wailing wall. And I would never have seen the world as the rich place that it is. You wouldn't have seen me here in Africa, doing what I do.
waiting watches life-is
Life is a helluva thing. You can see trouble coming and you can't do a damn thing to prevent it coming. You just got to sit and watch and wait.
running stupid people
The melancholy thing about the world is that it is full of stupid people; and the world is run for the benefit of the stupid and common.
writing documentation details
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.
father thinking people
We made no inquiries about India or about the families people had left behind. When our ways of thinking had changed, and we wished to know, it was too late. I know nothing of the people on my father's side; I know only that some of them came from Nepal
names two talking
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.
biographies autobiography incompleteness
The biography of a writer - or even the autobiography - will always have this incompleteness.
writing ideas intuition
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.
islamic simple roots
I became very interested in the Islamic question, and thought I would try to understand it from the roots, ask very simple questions and somehow make a narrative of that discovery.
oxford crafts left
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.