212 Quotes by V.S. Naipaul

Writing has to support itself.

As a child I knew almost nothing, nothing beyond what I had picked up in my grandmother’s house. All children, I suppose, come into the world like that, not knowing who they are.

In the beginning, before the arrival of the white men, I had considered myself neutral. I had wanted neither side to win, neither the army nor the rebels. As it turned out, both sides lost.

Some lesser husbands built a latrine on the hillside.

In a way my reputation has become that of the curmudgeon.

We had become what the world outside had made us; we had to live in the world as it existed.

Everybody is interesting for an hour, but few people can last more than two.

And so my satisfactions had only been brothel satisfactions, which hadn’t been satisfactions at all.

I’ve never abandoned the novel.