A star appeared…and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.
WILLIAM GOLDINGA star appeared…and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.
WILLIAM GOLDINGOf 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.
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 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 GOLDINGBut forgiveness must not only be given but received also.
WILLIAM GOLDINGAre we savages or what?
WILLIAM GOLDINGPhilosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?
WILLIAM GOLDINGArt is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery.
WILLIAM GOLDINGPeople don’t help much.
WILLIAM GOLDINGAnd I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.
WILLIAM GOLDINGMarx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western World. Simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence.
WILLIAM GOLDINGHe 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.
WILLIAM GOLDINGHow can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?
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 GOLDINGI am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.
WILLIAM GOLDINGI hope my books make statements about our general condition.
WILLIAM GOLDING