If faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?
WILLIAM GOLDINGIf faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?
WILLIAM GOLDINGTo be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself. It may be
WILLIAM GOLDINGNothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don’t understand.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI 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 GOLDINGHow would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
WILLIAM GOLDINGTowards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThere is, they say, no fool like an old fool.
WILLIAM GOLDINGIf 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.
WILLIAM GOLDINGLife’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThere were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.
WILLIAM GOLDINGPhilosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?
WILLIAM GOLDINGPeople don’t help much.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThe 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.’
WILLIAM GOLDINGWe’re not savages. We’re English.
WILLIAM GOLDINGRalph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThe 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.
WILLIAM GOLDING