William Golding
William Golding
Sir William Gerald Golding CBEwas a British novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his novel Lord of the Flies, he won a Nobel Prize in Literature, and was also awarded the Booker Prize for literature in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage, the first book in what became his sea trilogy, To the Ends of the Earth...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth19 September 1911
fun islands fetch
This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun.
mean writing thinking
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.
honestly
Honestly, I haven't the time to read contemporary writers. I know this is awful, but in the main it is true.
wise thinking trouble
The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise.
writing
Of the authors writing in English, I'd mention Shakespeare and Milton. But all this is terribly high-hat and makes me sound very po-faced, I'm afraid; however, I just happen to like these enormous, swinging, great creatures.
blow animal fire
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.
book writing thinking
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.
book writing write-your-own
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.
mother attractive mice
Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.
mad long utopia
How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
skulls answers knows
The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers but won't tell.
believe mean nuts
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.
thinking fancy-things reason-why
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?
effort essentials illness
Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness.