William Golding quotes

Sleep is when all unsorted stuff comes as from a dustbin upset in a high wind. (William Golding)
The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.
William Golding
My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
William Golding
Which is better--to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
William Golding
The greatest ideas are the simplest.
William Golding
I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men - they are far superior and always have been.
William Golding
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 Golding
The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth.
William Golding
Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!
William Golding
Language fits over experience like a straight jacket.
William Golding
His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink. (William Golding)
How can you expect to be rescued if you don't put first things first and act proper?
William Golding
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
Aren't there any grownups at all?" "I don't think so." The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him. In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. "No grownups!
William Golding
He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.
William Golding
Maybe there is a beast... maybe it's only us.
William Golding
The thing is - fear can't hurt you any more than a dream.
William Golding
I 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 Golding
Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness.
William Golding
We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.
William Golding
You'll get back to where you came from. (William Golding)
I'm scared of him," said Piggy, "and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's alright really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breath. I tell you what. He hates you too, Ralph -" "Me? Why me?" "I dunno. You got him over the fire; an' you're chief an' he isn't." "But he's Jack Merridew!" "I been in bed so much I done some thinking. I know about people. I know about me. And him. He can't hurt you: but if you're standing out of the way he'd hurt the next thing. And that's me." "Piggy's right, Ralph. There's you and Jack. Go on being chief.
William Golding
One day I was sitting one side of the fireplace, and my wife was sitting on the other, and I suddenly said to her, "Wouldn't it be a good idea to write a story about some boys on an island, showing how they would really behave, being boys and not little saints as they usually are in children's books.” And she said, "That's a first-class idea! You write it!”.
William Golding
The journey of life is like a man riding a bicycle. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. We know that if he stops moving and does not get off he will fall off.
William Golding
He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.
William Golding