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

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
Pessimist
Optimist
Conviction
Intellectual
Nature

More quotes by William Golding

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I've come across a novel called The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, that is really remarkable because it is a kind of fantasy of West African mythology all told in West African English which, of course, is not the same as standard English.
William Golding
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I also know Patrick White in Australia, both personally and as a writer, and Salman Rushdie in India.
William Golding
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The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won't tell.
William Golding
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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.
William Golding
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In India the odd thing is that English is this almost artificial language floating on the surface of a place with about fifty other languages. The same is true of Nigeria but even more so.
William Golding
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They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.
William Golding
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I suppose I'd have to say that my favourite author is Homer. After Homer's Ilaid, I'd name The Odyssey, and then I'd mention a number of plays of Euripides.
William Golding
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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
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He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery.
William Golding
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Couldn't a fire outrun a galloping horse?
William Golding
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What could be safer than the bus center with its lamps and wheels?
William Golding
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There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.
William Golding
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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?
William Golding
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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
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I think they've got 250 languages in Nigeria, and so English is a sort of lingua franca between the 250 languages.
William Golding
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I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.
William Golding
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One tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.
William Golding
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Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.
William Golding
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Heaven lies around us in our infancy.
William Golding
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No human endeavour can ever be wholly good... it must always have a cost.
William Golding