V. S. Naipaul Quotes

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.

No dance has ever turned out the way I thought it would, because I trust enough that I can start something with some ideas and then it takes itself somewhere.

When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best - that is inspiration.

I get a sentence, an idea, an image, and I start. I don't know anything beyond it. I follow it.

Trust that little voice in your head that says 'Wouldn't it be interesting if...'; And then do it.

You just kind of have faith. If that sounds kind of mystical, it's because I really don't know how it works, but I trust that it does. I try to write the way I read, in order to find out what happens next.

Directing is like meeting a woman. You don't know her, but something strikes you, and then you just have to go into it.

Art is lunging forward without certainty about where you are going or how to get there, being open to and dependent on what luck, the paint, the typo, the dissonance, give you. Without art you're stuck with yourself as you are and life as you think life is.

I've never been one of those guys who storyboards every frame, because that would take away some of the mystery and some of the fun.

Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know.

When I write, I never know the endings. What I think works in [my] stories is the fact that when I write, I really want to find out what is going on-I'm writing for myself as a reader. It's like when you dream a dream. I want to know what's behind the door. If I navigate, it's from a place that's totally intuitive.

I never know what I am writing. The moment you know what you're writing, you're writing nothing worth reading.

You can't buy something which does not exist. In a way, let's make things exist and then judge later. Don't cancel the process of creativity too early; let it flow.

When I write a story, I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is that I want to share something with my readers. The whole idea of writing is this place where you lose control, where you're irresponsible - it's a very liberating place.

To some extent I happily don't know what I'm doing. I feel that it's an artist's responsibility to trust that.

I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

I prefer to surprise myself as I'm writing. I'm not interested in it if I already know where it's going. So I have only the most general sense of what I'm doing when I start a story. I sometimes have a destination in mind, but how the story is going to go from Point A to Point Z is something I make up as I go along.

I don't know what the secret is when I am writing it - it really is a surprise to me.

The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Creativity makes a leap, then looks to see where it is.

When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.

In using chance operations, the mind is enriched.

The kind of writing that matters most to me is something you don't learn about. It's constantly coming out of what I don't know rather than what I do know.