V. S. Naipaul - A Bend in the River (1979)

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The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

V. S. Naipaul

After all, we make ourselves according to the ideas we have of our possibilities.

V. S. Naipaul

If it was Europe that gave us on the coast some idea of our history, it was Europe, I feel, that also introduced us to the lie.

V. S. Naipaul

The Europeans wanted gold and slaves, like everybody else; but at the same time they wanted statues put up to themselves as people who had done good things for the slaves.

V. S. Naipaul

In the beginning, before the arrival of the white men, I had considered myself neutral. I had wanted neither side to win, neither the army nor the rebels. As it turned out, both sides lost.

V. S. Naipaul

A businessman is someone who buys at ten and is happy to get out at twelve. The other kind of man buys at ten, sees it rise to eighteen and does nothing. He is waiting for it to rise to twenty. When it drops to two he waits for it to get back to ten.

V. S. Naipaul