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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.

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
People
Ideas
Therefore
Book
Taking
Take
Novel
Important
Courses
Novels
Writing
Course
Twice
Think
Books
Seriously
Thinking
Read
Deeply
Like
Write
Concern

More quotes by William Golding

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Honestly, I haven't the time to read contemporary writers. I know this is awful, but in the main it is true.
William Golding
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But forgiveness must not only be given but received also.
William Golding
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Ralph... would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.
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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My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
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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Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against this as a method, but it is not what English writers do.
William Golding
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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.
William Golding
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Which is better -- to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? Which is better -- to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
William Golding
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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.
William Golding
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I have a confession to make. The love affair of my life has been with the Greek language. I have now reached the age when it has occurred to me that I may have read some books for the last time. I suddenly thought that there are books I cannot bear not to read again before I die. One that stands out a mile is Homer's Iliad.
William Golding
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Marx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western World. Simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence.
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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At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.
William Golding
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I'm not a critic so much of my own writing. People must make up their own minds over that.
William Golding
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No human endeavour can ever be wholly good... it must always have a cost.
William Golding
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The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.
William Golding
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If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?
William Golding
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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.
William Golding
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Heaven lies around us in our infancy.
William Golding