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
William Golding quotes about
rushdie
I also know Patrick White in Australia, both personally and as a writer, and Salman Rushdie in India.
dream reading people
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.
latin communication fighting
Latin, as we all know, ultimately broke down into Spanish, Italian, French, and so on. One wonders whether there will be an imperial parallel with English breaking down into, shall we say, North American, European, Australian, and so on. On the other hand, there is this immense, inward-driving influence of radio and television that is bringing us all back together. One could say it's a fight between the two: a fight between regionalism and the standardization through communication.
point-of-view diverse
For a small island, the place is remarkably diverse. Writers tend to see things from their own points of view, looking in one direction very much.
long novel
I really feel the novel has certain conveniences about it and has something so fundamental about it you could almost say that as long as there is paper, there is going to be the novel.
novel disguise
However you disguise novels, they are always biographies.
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.
writing people mind
I'm not a critic so much of my own writing. People must make up their own minds over that.
children long once-upon-a-time
When you take a child who's hollering like hell, sit him on your knee, and say "once upon a time", you stop him hollering. As long as you go on telling him a story, he will listen. Novelists who neglect this fundamental effect do so at their peril. They become what is known as the experimental novelist, and an experimental novel is not really a novel at all.
writing thinking unique
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.
writing thinking community
Maybe half a dozen think they are a community, but, in general terms, I think English writers tend to face outwards, away from each other, and write in their own patch, as it were.
father musical
My father was very musical, and music plays quite a large part in my life.
odyssey favourite
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.
eye vision moments
At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.