“He read political books. They gave him phrases which he could only speak to himself and use on Shama. They also revealed one region after another of misery and injustice and left him feeling more helpless and more isolated than ever. Then it was that he discovered the solace of Dickens. Without difficulty he transferred characters and settings to people and places he knew. In the grotesques of Dickens everything he feared and suffered from was ridiculed and diminished, so that his own anger, his own contempt became unnecessary, and he was given strength to bear the most difficult part of his day: dressing in the morning, that daily affirmation of faith in oneself, which at times for him was almost like an act of sacrifice.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“Some lesser husbands built a latrine on the hillside.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“On the front cover of Newsweek reviews "A House for Mr. Biswas" as "a marvelous prose epic that matches the best 19th century novels for richness of comic insight and final, tragic power.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“In his original design the solicitor's clerk seemed to have forgotten the need for a staircase to link both the floors, and what he had provided had the appearance of an afterthought. Doorways had been punched in the eastern wall and a rough wooden staircase - heavy planks on an uneven frame with one warped unpainted banister, the whole covered with a sloping roof of corrugated iron - hung precariously at the back of the house, in striking contrast with the white-pointed brickwork of the front, the white woodwork and the frosted glass of doors and windows.
For this house Mr.Biswas had paid five thousand five hundred dollars.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“How ridiculous were the attentions the weak paid one another in the shadow of the strong!”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“Change had come over him without his knowing. There had been no precise point at which the city had lost its romance and promise, no point at which he had begun to consider himself old, his career closed, and his visions of the future became only visions of Anand's future. Each realization had been delayed and had come, not as a surprise, but as a statement of a condition long accepted.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“attributed the decay of Hindu society in Trinidad to the rise of the timorous, weak, non-beating class of husband.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“found, to his surprise, that he had put an end to their threats.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“The weeks before he died, Mr Mohun Biswas, a journalist of Sikkim Street, St James , Port of Spain, was sacked. He had been ill for some time. In less than a year he had spent more than nine weeks at the Colonial Hospital and convalesced at home for even longer. When the doctor advised him to take a complete rest the 'Trinidad Sentinel' had no choice. It gave Mr Biswas three months' notice and continued, up to the time of his death, to supply him every morning with a free copy of the paper.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“How terrible it would have been, at this time, to be without it; to have died among the Tulsis, amid the squalour of that large, disintegrating and indifferent family; to have left Shama and the children among them, in one room; or worse, to have lived without even attempting to lay claim to one’s portion of the earth; to have lived and died as one had been born, unnecessary and unaccommodated.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“Every man and woman he saw, even at a distance, gave him a twist of panic. But he had already grown used to that; it had become part of the pain of living. Then, as he cycled, he discovered a new depth to this pain. Every object he had not seen for twenty-four hours was part of his whole and happy past. Everything he now saw became sullied by his fear, every field, every house, every tree, every turn in the road, every bump and subsidence. So that, by merely looking at the world, he was progressively destroying his present and his past.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“Though no one recognized his strength, Anand was among the strong. His satirical sense kept him aloof. At first this was only a pose, and imitation of his father. But satire led to contempt, and at Shorthills contempt, quick, deep, inclusive, became part of his nature. It led to inadequacies, to self-awareness and a lasting loneliness. But it made him unassailable.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“Misir’s first story was about a man who had been out of work for months and was starving. His five children were starving; his wife was having another baby. It was December and the shops were full of food and toys. On Christmas eve the man got a job. Going home that evening, he was knocked down and killed by a motorcar that didn’t stop.
'Helluva thing," Mr Biswas said. ‘I like the part about the car not stopping.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
“I don’t know why they still building houses," Mr Biswas said. "Nobody don’t want a house these days. They just want a coal barrel. One coal barrel for one person. Whenever a baby born just get another coal barrel. You wouldn’t see any houses anywhere then. Just a yard with five or six coal barrels standing up in two or three rows.”
― V.S. Naipaul, quote from A House for Mr Biswas
V.S. Naipaul
Born place: in Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago
Born date August 17, 1932
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“An hour later I'm on my way back to the office, with Nico's scent on my clothes and inside of me. I have a sneaking suspicion that Nico wanted it that way, knowing that I was seeing William.”
― Vi Keeland, quote from Worth the Fight
“To have her respond in kind, unhindered by the Elder, was an ecstasy I wanted to lose myself in forever.”
― Bella Forrest, quote from A Break of Day
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― Celeste Ng, quote from Little Fires Everywhere
“I don't know and I don't care anymore. I was supposed to have my way for once, just once in my life. I did everything right and I got nothing for it.
I want to kill them all. no, better yet, I want to die. No, even bettter than that: I want to kill them all then die.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl
“World War II ended in a battle for a single buildng, Germany's Reichstag...7,000 German troops defending the building...Nearly 5,000 men died in a battle for the building.”
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