But forgiveness must not only be given but received also.
WILLIAM GOLDINGBut forgiveness must not only be given but received also.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature. I produce my own view in the belief that it may be something like the truth.
WILLIAM GOLDINGOne tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.
WILLIAM GOLDINGBeethoven for listening; Liszt, Chopin, and Beethoven for playing as well as Bach and Prokofiev and so on. If I kept going, this list would spiral. It’s as wide as literature; in fact, it is probably wider.
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 GOLDINGFancy 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?
WILLIAM GOLDINGThe greatest ideas are the simplest.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI 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.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI 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.
WILLIAM GOLDINGWe’re not savages. We’re English.
WILLIAM GOLDINGThe mask was a thing on it’s own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.
WILLIAM GOLDINGLanguage fits over experience like a straight-jacket.
WILLIAM GOLDINGPercival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.
WILLIAM GOLDINGIt may be — I hope it is — redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable.
WILLIAM GOLDINGA 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 GOLDINGThere were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.
WILLIAM GOLDING