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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

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

Certainty Know Life Mean Scientific
I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.
WILLIAM GOLDING

People Person Philosopher Storyteller Theologian
How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Act Expect First Proper Rescue Thing
We just got to go on, that’s all. That’s what grownups would do.
WILLIAM GOLDING

All Do Go Grown Up Just On
I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Astonish Ease Prison Settle Uniform
Together, joined in effort by the burden, they staggered up the last steep of the mountain. Together, they chanted One! Two! Three! and crashed the log on to the great pile. Then they stepped back, laughing with triumphant pleasure.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Burden Chant Effort Join Last Mountain Sleep Staggered Together Two
I will tell you what man is. He is a freak, an ejected foetus robbed of his natural development, thrown out into the world with a naked covering of parchment, with too little room for his teeth and a soft bulging skull like a bubble. But nature stirs a pudding there.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Cover Development Eject Foetus Freak Made Man Natural Rob Tell Will World
Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Better Break Hunt Law Rescue Thing Up
The Navy’s a very gentlemanly business. You fire at the horizon to sink a ship and then you pull people out of the water and say, ‘Frightfully sorry, old chap.’
WILLIAM GOLDING

Business Fire Frightfully Gentleently Horizon Navy People Say Pull Ship Very Water
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
It may be — I hope it is — redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Beauty Guess Hell Hope Majesty May Perhaps Redemption See Universe Vastness
This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we’ll have fun.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Fetch Fun Good Grownup Island Until
the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Cease Conch Exist Exlod Fragment Thousand
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
Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Away Cease Cloud Drift Incredible Lamp Mighnight More Once Scatter Sky Star Towards
I do think that art that doesn’t communicate is useless.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Art Communicate Think Useless

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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