Trinidadian - Novelist | August 17, 1932 -
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.
V. S. Naipaul
WomanWritingKnowTwoWithinPiece
The world is always in movement.
NatureWorldAlwaysMovement
It is important not to trust people too much.
TrustPeopleToo MuchImportantMuch
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.
LifeWritingDetailsMysteryWill
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.'
HistoryCulturePastYouSayMatter
An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.
FactsNeverFictionAutobiography
I have trusted to my intuition to find the subjects, and I have written intuitively. I have an idea when I start, I have a shape; but I will fully understand what I have written only after some years.
StartFindUnderstandWillShape
Africans need to be kicked, that's the only thing they understand.
UnderstandNeedOnlyThe Only Thing
The longer I live the more convinced I become that one of the greatest honors we can confer on other people is to see them as they are, to recognize not only that they exist, but that they exist in specific ways and have specific realities.
LivePeopleBecomeMoreSeeExist
At school I had only admirers; I had no friends.
SchoolFriendsNo FriendsOnlyHad
This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.
PeopleMeTrueAskGiveUnusual
I read many things. I read to fill in my knowledge of the world.
KnowledgeWorldThingsReadMany
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