We'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 GoldingI know there isn't no beastโnot with claws and all that, I meanโbut I know there isn't no fear, either." Piggy paused. "Unlessโ" Ralph moved restlessly. "Unless what?" "Unless we get frightened of people.
William GoldingIt wasn't until I was 37 that I grasped the great truth that you've got to write your own books and nobody else's, and then everything followed from there.
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 GoldingBiography always has fulfiled this role. Robinson Crusoe is a biography, as is Tom Jones. You can go through the whole range of the novel, and you will find it is biography. The only difference between one example and the other is that sometimes it's a partial biography and sometimes it's a total biography. Clarissa, for example, is a partial biography of Clarissa and a partial biography of Lovelace. In other words, it doesn't follow Lovelace from when he is in the cradle, though it takes him to the grave.
William Golding