“That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing.”
"Two Worlds," Nobel lecture (7 December 2001) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2001/naipaul-lecture-e.html
Context: I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true. It might seem strange that a man who has dealt in words and emotions and ideas for nearly fifty years shouldn't have a few to spare, so to speak. But everything of value about me is in my books. Whatever extra there is in me at any given moment isn't fully formed. I am hardly aware of it; it awaits the next book. It will — with luck — come to me during the actual writing, and it will take me by surprise. That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing.
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V.S. Naipaul 34
Trinidadian-British writer of Indo-Nepalese ancestry 1932–2018Related quotes
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“Because they know the name of what I am looking for, they think they know what I am looking for!”
Porque saben el nombre de lo que busco ¡creen que saben lo que busco!
Voces (1943)
“I stop wanting what I am looking for, looking for it.”
Voy perdiendo el deseo de lo que busco, buscando lo que deseo.
Voces (1943)