I do like people to read the books twice, because I write my novels about ideas which concern me deeply and I think are important, and therefore I want people to take them seriously. And to read it twice of course is taking it seriously.
WILLIAM GOLDINGWhile I am on, I can discipline myself to that extent. When I am off, I can’t discipline myself at all. On the other hand, when I am off, there are so many things I like doing, it doesn’t really matter.
More William Golding Quotes
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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 -
Fancy 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 GOLDING -
A 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 GOLDING -
He 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 GOLDING -
The Navy’s a very gentlemanly business. You fire at the horizon to sink a ship and then you pull people out of the water and say, ‘Frightfully sorry, old chap.’
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
You’ll get back to where you came from.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
We’re not savages. We’re English.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
No human endeavour can ever be wholly good… it must always have a cost.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
If faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?
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 -
Ralph… would treat the day’s decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won’t tell.
WILLIAM GOLDING