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One tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.

William Golding

Philosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Get Lump Now Philosophy Religion Water Wind
Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Better Break Hunt Law Rescue Thing Up
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.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Crow Grade Hand Prejudice Same Shout Thing Thinker Warning
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?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Better Country Like Pach Paint People Sensible
The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers….Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Ait Bud Candle Flower Island Open Possession Scent Spilled Wide
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.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Day Five Inaccurately Indeed Other Passionate Piano Play Seventy Work Year
To 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 GOLDING

Anything Believe Guess Hell Merely Neither Only World
The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Away Lawful Slip Understable World
I will tell you what man is. He is a freak, an ejected foetus robbed of his natural development, thrown out into the world with a naked covering of parchment, with too little room for his teeth and a soft bulging skull like a bubble. But nature stirs a pudding there.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Cover Development Eject Foetus Freak Made Man Natural Rob Tell Will World
I do think that art that doesn’t communicate is useless.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Art Communicate Think Useless
If faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Above Anything Below Face Facem Different When
What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Animal Human Savage
You’ll get back to where you came from.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Back Came From Get
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.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Geometry Get Greatest Humanity Own People Pleasure Say Sex Understanding
Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Attractive Beem Cloured Even Mother Mouse Percival Very
Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Beast Maybe Only Us

One tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.

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One tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.

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Popular Authors

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