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We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?

William Golding

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William Golding
Age: 81 †
Born: 1911
Born: September 19
Died: 1993
Died: June 19
Novelist
Poet
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Newquay
Cornwall
William Gerald Albert Golding
Sir William Gerald Golding
Everything
Would
Adults
Went
Wrong

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He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.
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Are we savages or what?
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Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.
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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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If I blow the conch and they don't come back then we've had it. We shan't keep the fire going. We'll be like animals. We'll never be rescued. If you don't blow, we'll soon be animals anyway.
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We have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other.
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Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years.
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If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?
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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 really feel the novel has certain conveniences about it and has something so fundamental about it you could almost say that as long as there is paper, there is going to be the novel.
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This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun.
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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.
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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.
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I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.
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What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?
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Maybe, he said hesitantly, maybe there is a beast. The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in amazement. You, Simon? You believe in this? I don't know, said Simon. His heartbeats were choking him. [...] Ralph shouted. Hear him! He's got the conch! What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us. Nuts! That was from Piggy, shocked out of decorum.
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One's intelligence may march about and about a problem, but the solution does not come gradually into view. One moment it is not. The next it is there.
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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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At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.
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Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
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