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An orotundity, which I define as Nobelitis a pomposity in which one is treated as representative of more than oneself by someone conscious of representing more than himself.

William Golding

We’re not savages. We’re English.
WILLIAM GOLDING

English Language Savage
Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Beast Maybe Only Us
I hope my books make statements about our general condition.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Book Condition General Hope Make Statement
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
I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off and on. You can say that when I am on, when I know I have a book which I am going to write, then I write two thousand words a day. That’s so many pages longhand.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Been Began Ever Off Say Seven Since Still When Write You
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
the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Cease Conch Exist Exlod Fragment Thousand
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
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
Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Agree Better Hunt Kill
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.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Beast Claw Fear Know Mean No Pause Piggy
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
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
The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Away Lawful Slip Understable World
If faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Above Anything Below Face Facem Different When

An orotundity, which I define as Nobelitis a pomposity in which one is treated as representative of more than oneself by someone conscious of representing more than himself.

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An orotundity, which I define as Nobelitis a pomposity in which one is treated as representative of more than oneself by someone conscious of representing more than himself.

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Popular Authors

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