A star appeared…and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.
More William Golding Quotes
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There’s a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.
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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.
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Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
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I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.
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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.
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What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?
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You have the older generation like Iris Murdoch and Angus Wilson who are not as old as Graham Greene, but still are coming on. I dare say anyone who knew the scene better than I know it could fill it in with a very satisfactory supply of novels.
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Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! I’m the reason why it’s no go? Why things are what they are?
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I’m scared of him,” said Piggy, “and that’s why I know him. If you’re scared of someone you hate him but you can’t stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he’s all right really, an’ then when you see him again; it’s like asthma an’ you can’t breathe.
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Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.
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Childhood is a disease – a sickness that you grow out of.
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Even if you got rid of paper, you would still have story-tellers. In fact, you had the story-tellers before you had the paper.
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The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise.
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The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.
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Graham Greene at 82 years old was still writing, and I don’t think anyone can deny the force, the expertise, and the unique quality of his writing, if you take his complete oeuvre.
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The greatest ideas are the simplest.
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The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream.
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Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars.
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How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?
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Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.
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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.
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How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
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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.
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While I am on, I can discipline myself to that extent. When I am off, I can’t discipline myself at all. On the other hand, when I am off, there are so many things I like doing, it doesn’t really matter.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
I know there isn’t no beast-not with claws and all that, I mean-but I know there isn’t no fear, either.” Piggy paused. “Unless-” Ralph moved restlessly. “Unless what?” “Unless we get frightened of people.
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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