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
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.
Interpretation
The quote discusses different perspectives writers have regarding their experiences, particularly childhood versus ongoing life experiences.
V. S. Naipaul highlights the distinction between writers who focus solely on childhood experiences, which they perceive as complete and unchangeable, and those who continue to process and draw from their ongoing life experiences. This reflects the idea that writing can stem from both finite moments in time and the fluid nature of life, influencing how stories and expressions are crafted.
In practice
In a speech on creativity, one could use this quote to illustrate the different sources of inspiration for artists.
When I learnt to write I became my own master, I became very strong, and that strength is with me to this very day.
It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.
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.
One must always try to see the truth of a situation - it makes things universal.
His ignorance seemed to widen with everything he read.
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.
In our hurried world too little value is attached to the part of the connoisseur and dilettante.
I get good references from a wide range of music. Something who's been a good influence in the last few years is Qawwali music. If you listen to a Qawwali singer like Aziz Mian - he's like James Brown. Qawwali is like Pakistani gospel-jazz. It's emotional, but it's also improvised, and it's all about that sacred-and-profane tightrope.
You can't read to yourself. It's your inner ear that hears a poem. If you hear a poet read his own work, it becomes very exciting. The melody is a great part of it.
To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be a part of a solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on.
Don't play the notes. Play the meaning of the notes.
I'm creating an imaginary β it's always imaginary β world in which I would like to live.
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