The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he’s written it.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThe candle-buds opened their wide white flowers….Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.
More William Golding Quotes
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It wasn’t until I was 37 that I grasped the great truth that you’ve got to write your own books and nobody else’s, and then everything followed from there.
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The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won’t tell.
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Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies!
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Worse than madness. Sanity.
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I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.
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I’ve come across a novel called The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, that is really remarkable because it is a kind of fantasy of West African mythology all told in West African English which, of course, is not the same as standard English.
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Are we savages or what?
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They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling unable to communicate.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
The greatest pleasure is not – say – sex or geometry. It is just understanding. And if you can get people to understand their own humanity – well, that’s the job of the writer.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers….Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
We’re not savages. We’re English.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Only one novel is a novel: that is a successful novel.
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Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
A star appeared…and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.
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One’s intelligence may march about and about a problem, but the solution does not come gradually into view. One moment it is not. The next it is there.
WILLIAM GOLDING