William Golding Quotes

But forgiveness must not only be given but received also.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Forgiveness Given Must Receive
What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Eraser Favorite Human Kind Person
Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Art Communication Discover Partly Rest
It 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 GOLDING

Book Else Everything Follow Grasp Great Nobody Own Seven Thirty Truth Until
I 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 GOLDING

Almost Certain Convenience Could Feel Fundamental Long Novel Really Say Something
I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.
WILLIAM GOLDING

People Person Philosopher Storyteller Theologian
The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Away Lawful Slip Understable World
Marx, 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 GOLDING

Bore Country Crash Most People Person Western World
I 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 GOLDING

Applying Believe Ignorance Man Nature Own Suffer
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

Beast Claw Fear Know Mean No Pause Piggy
I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Astonish Ease Prison Settle Uniform
An orotundity, which I define as Nobelitis a pomposity in which one is treated as representative of more than oneself by someone conscious of representing more than himself.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Conscious Define Less More Nobelities One Orotundity Proposity Representative Someone Treat
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

Best English Everything Obey Rule Savage Them
In India the odd thing is that English is this almost artificial language floating on the surface of a place with about fifty other languages. The same is true of Nigeria but even more so.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Almost Artificial Country English Fifty Float Language Odd Other Place Surface Thing
I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Condition Intelectual Nature Optimist Pessimist
How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
WILLIAM GOLDING

Before Long Mad Myself Proposed Society Stark Start
I’ve come across a novel called The Palm-Wine Drinkard, by the Nigerian writer Amos Tutuola, that is really remarkable because it is a kind of fantasy of West African mythology all told in West African English which, of course, is not the same as standard English.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Call Come Cross Dimkard Kind Novel Palm Person Really Remarkable Wine Writer
Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Experience Fit Kjacket Language Like Over Straight
The 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

Geometry Get Greatest Humanity Own People Pleasure Say Sex Understanding
I play the piano passionately and inaccurately. Indeed, I worked out the other day that of my seventy-five years; I have spent at least one year sitting on a piano stool.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Day Five Inaccurately Indeed Other Passionate Piano Play Seventy Work Year
The water rose further and dressed Simon’s coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Brightness Celebrity Dress Further Hair People Person Rose Water
Only one novel is a novel: that is a successful novel.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Novel One Only Successful
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 all right really, an’ then when you see him again; it’s like asthma an’ you can’t breathe.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Hate Known Piggy Scare Someone Think
To 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 GOLDING

Anything Believe Guess Hell Merely Neither Only World
The greatest ideas are the simplest.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Greatest Ideas Simplest
Are we savages or what?
WILLIAM GOLDING

All Savage What
Life’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.
WILLIAM GOLDING

Certainty Know Life Mean Scientific

Other Famous Personalities