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Life’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.

William Golding

I don’t think they [contemporary writers] read me either. I mean, if we’re concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Concern Contemporary Either Genuinely Mean Read Think Write
We have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Disharmony Each Injury Nature Other Together
You’ll get back to where you came from.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Back Came From Get
Every novel is a biography. Well, then, this is a novel [The Paper Men] which is a biography that is pretending to be an autobiography. That’s what you could say about it.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Appear Biography Emn Every Novel Pretend Well
Beethoven for listening; Liszt, Chopin, and Beethoven for playing as well as Bach and Prokofiev and so on. If I kept going, this list would spiral. It’s as wide as literature; in fact, it is probably wider.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Beethoven Country Listen People Person Play Well
Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Agree Better Hunt Kill
We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Best English Everything Obey Rule Savage Them
What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Eraser Favorite Human Kind Person
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 GOLDING

Book Forget Immediately Know Meant Probably Writer Written Wrote
I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Day Five Inaccurately Indeed Other Passionate Piano Play Seventy Work Year
Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Attractive Beem Cloured Even Mother Mouse Percival Very
Heaven lies around us in our infancy.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Around Heaven Infancy Lie Our
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.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Book Else Everything Follow Grasp Great Nobody Own Seven Thirty Truth Until
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

Geometry Get Greatest Humanity Own People Pleasure Say Sex Understanding
However you disguise novels, they are always biographies.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Always Biography Disguise Novel
A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Crow Grade Hand Prejudice Same Shout Thing Thinker Warning

Life’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.

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Life’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.

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Popular Authors

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