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Only one novel is a novel: that is a successful novel.

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
Novel
Successful

More quotes by William Golding

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There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.
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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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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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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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He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life,where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.
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Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.
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It wasn't until I was 37 that I grasped the great truth that you've got to write your own books and nobody else's, and then everything followed from there.
William Golding
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My father was very musical, and music plays quite a large part in my life.
William Golding
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Put simply the novel stands between us and the hardening concept of statistical man. There is no other medium in which we can live for so long and so intimately with a character. That is the service a novel renders.
William Golding
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Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.
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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.
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There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.
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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.'
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My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
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What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?
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I suppose drama can either take the place of a novel or can be very closely allied with it. It's quite customary to turn a successful novel into a film or a television series because you can dramatize and pictorialize a novel.
William Golding
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We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.
William Golding
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Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness.
William Golding
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How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
William Golding
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Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
William Golding