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 on alone
What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude. V. S. Naipaul on attitude
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. V. S. Naipaul on business
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 on business
Some writers can only deal with childhood experience, because it's complete. For another kind of writer, life goes on, and he's able to keep processing that as well. V. S. Naipaul on experience
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 on history
Great writing can be done in biography, history, art. V. S. Naipaul on history
To be converted you have to destroy your past, destroy your history. You have to stamp on it, you have to say 'my ancestral culture does not exist, it doesn't matter.' V. S. Naipaul on history
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 on home
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 on home
Trinidad may seem complex, but to anyone who knows it, it is a simple, colonial, philistine society. V. S. Naipaul on society
When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day. V. S. Naipaul on strength
It is important not to trust people too much. V. S. Naipaul on trust
One must always try to see the truth of a situation - it makes things universal. V. S. Naipaul on truth