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. NaipaulRead
But everything of value about me is in my books.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of a person's worth and identity is encapsulated in their written work.
In this quote, V. S. Naipaul emphasizes that the most significant aspects of his life and character are expressed through his writings. He suggests that his books contain the true value of his experiences, thoughts, and identity, showing the profound connection between an author and their work. This reflects the idea that art, particularly literature, serves as a powerful vehicle for self-expression and understanding.
Themes
ValueBooksIdentityWritingExpression
In practice
Example use cases
During a literary discussion, one might say this quote to emphasize the importance of an author's work.
More from V. S. Naipaul
All quotes βIt is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.
V. S. NaipaulRead
If you decide to move to another country and to live within its laws you don't express your disregard for the essence of the culture. It's a form of aggression.
V. S. NaipaulRead
One must always try to see the truth of a situation - it makes things universal.
V. S. NaipaulRead
His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.
V. S. NaipaulRead
I think when you see so many Hindu temples of the 10th century or earlier disfigured, defaced, you realise that something terrible happened. I feel the civilisation of that closed world was mortally wounded by those invasions the old world is destroyed. That has to be understood. Ancient Hindu India was destroyed.
V. S. NaipaulRead
Similar quotes
He constructed a vast labyrinthine of periods, made impassable by the piling-up of clauses upon clauses-clauses in which oversight and bad grammar seemed manifestations of disdain.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.
Carl HiaasenRead
Fiction and essays can create empathy for the theoretical stranger.
Barbara KingsolverRead
When 'Midnight's Children' came out, people in the West tended to respond to the fantasy elements in the novel, to praise it in those terms. In India, people read it like a history book.
Salman RushdieRead
You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.
Margaret AtwoodRead
Even though I read voraciously as a child, I never saw myself in books. Without narratives to expand my ideas of who I could be, I accepted the stories others told me about myself, stories which diminished and belittled me and people like me. I want to write against that.
Jesmyn WardRead