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
Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it. I feel that at any stage of my literary career it could have been said that the last book contained all the others.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Each book builds on previous works and contributes to the literary landscape.
V. S. Naipaul reflects on the interconnectedness of literature, suggesting that every book is influenced by its predecessors and, at the same time, adds to the continuum of literary creation. He emphasizes that a writer's current work encapsulates the essence of all their previous works, portraying the idea that literature is a dialogue across time and authors.
Themes
LiteratureBooksWritingInfluenceCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
In a literary workshop, discussing the evolution of writing styles.
More from V. S. Naipaul
All quotes →It 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
It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now.
StendhalRead
There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.
Mavis GallantRead
If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.
M. H. AbramsRead
I think the novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers. The novel receives streams of science, philosophy, poetry and contains all of these; it's not simply telling a story.
Jose SaramagoRead
We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
Franz KafkaRead
When I think of the books I love, there's always a little laughter in the dark.
Zadie SmithRead