An autobiography can distort; facts can be realigned. But fiction never lies: it reveals the writer totally.
V. S. Naipaul

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Other quotes by V. S. Naipaul

Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.

I don't feel I can speak with authority for many other people.

This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.

I'm very content.

I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.