William Golding Quotes
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Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand.
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The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood—and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition.
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No human endeavour can ever be wholly good... it must always have a cost.
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What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?
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I know there isn't no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn't no fear, either." Piggy paused. "Unless—" Ralph moved restlessly. "Unless what?" "Unless we get frightened of people.
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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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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.
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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?
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We have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other.
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They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling unable to communicate.
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Which is better--to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
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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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What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others.
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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.
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I'm scared of him," said Piggy, "and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's all right really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breathe.
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I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.
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The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble.
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The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won't tell.
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The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.
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They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.
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Heaven lies around us in our infancy.
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A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill.
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But forgiveness must not only be given but received also.
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His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.