01UndatedIt seems to me that we do live in two worlds... there is this physical one, which is coherant, and there is the spiritual one, which to the average man with his flashes of religious experience, is very often incoherant. This experience of having two worlds to live in all the time, or not all the time, is a vital one, and is what living is like.William Golding / quote ↗
02UndatedI've always been puzzled, and am still at this moment in a state of confusion, between the imaginative world and the real world. It is perfectly true to say that I have at some times in my life found that the imaginative world had pushed the real world right out of the way, and was literally more real.William Golding / quote ↗
03UndatedThe three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult lifeWilliam Golding / quote ↗
07UndatedMy yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.William Golding / quote ↗
08UndatedI'm against the picture of the artist as a starry-eyed visionary not really in control or knowing what he does. I'd almost prefer the word 'craftsman'. He's like one of those old-fashioned ship builders who conceived the build of the boat in their mind and after that touched every single piece that went into the boat.William Golding / quote ↗
09Undated-No, not it...I mean...what makes things break up like they do?-Piggy rubbed his glasses slowly and thought. When he understood how Ralph had gone towards accepting him he flushed pinkly with pride.-I donnot, Ralph. I expect it's him.--Jack?--Jack- A taboo was evolving round that word too.William Golding / quote ↗
10UndatedThe 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 / quote ↗
11UndatedAs for the fear, you'll have to put up with that like the rest of us.William Golding / quote ↗
13UndatedSleep is where we touch what is better left unexamined. There, the whole of life is bundled up, dwindled. There the carefully hoarded and enjoyed personality, our only treasure and at the same time our only defense must die into the ultimate truth of things, the black lightning that splits and destroys all, the positive, unquestionable nothingness.William Golding / quote ↗
14UndatedAllow me to tell you, Mr Taylor," said I, but quietly as the occasion demanded, "that one gentleman does not rejoice at the misfortune of another in public".William Golding / quote ↗
15UndatedThe moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.William Golding / quote ↗
18UndatedWe have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other.William Golding / quote ↗
21UndatedHis manual of heaven and hell lay open before me, and I could perceive my nothingness in this scheme.William Golding / quote ↗
23UndatedWe've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.William Golding / quote ↗
24UndatedNow we, if not in the spirit, have been caught up to see our earth, our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space. We have no excuse now for supposing her riches inexhaustible nor the area we have to live on limitless because unbounded. We are the children of that great blue white jewel. Through our mother we are part of the solar system and part through that of the whole universe. In the blazing poetry of the fact we are children of the stars.William Golding / quote ↗
