I grew up in a small place and left it when I was quite young and entered the bigger world.

I have a very small public.

I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.

I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.

I still think it's really quite wonderful when I read a sentence of mine and it has that quality of lastingness.

I'm the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.

I'm thought to be a tough writer, but I'm really a softie.

I'm very content.

I've been a free man.

I've never abandoned the novel.

If a writer doesn't generate hostility, he is dead.

If ever you wish to meet intellectual frauds in quantity, go to Paris.

If writers just sit and talk about oppression, they are not going to do much writing.

If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.

In a way my reputation has become that of the curmudgeon.

In England I am not English, in India I am not Indian. I am chained to the 1,000 square miles that is Trinidad; but I will evade that fate yet.

In England people are very proud of being very stupid.

It is important not to trust people too much.

Judgment is contained in the act of trying to understand.

Making a book is such a big enterprise.