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I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.

William Golding

I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature. I produce my own view in the belief that it may be something like the truth.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Applying Believe Ignorance Man Nature Own Suffer
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 like people to read the books twice, because I write my novels about ideas which concern me deeply and I think are important, and therefore I want people to take them seriously. And to read it twice of course is taking it seriously.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Book Concern Deeply Idea Important Like Novel People Raed Therefore Think Twice
The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Dream Fear Hurt More Thing
There’s a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Among Dry Kinship Life Measure Men Sat Worth
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
As soon as Oliver Twist is serialized, people who would never dream of reading [Charles] Dickens, if they hadn’t seen him on their box, buy the paperback.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Box Country Dream never People Person Raed Seen Serialized Soon
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
Heaven lies around us in our infancy.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Around Heaven Infancy Lie Our
Only one novel is a novel: that is a successful novel.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Novel One Only Successful
Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Come Dustbin Fly High Sleep Stuff Unsort Upet Wind
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
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
I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Here Nowhere Particular
Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Agree Better Hunt Kill
Philosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Get Lump Now Philosophy Religion Water Wind

I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.

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I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.

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Popular Authors

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