Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.
WILLIAM GOLDINGHe lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.
More William Golding Quotes
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Which is better — to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? Which is better — to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
He doesn’t mind if he dies… indeed, he would like to die; but yet he fears to fall. He would welcome a long sleep; but not at the price of falling to it.
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 -
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 -
Life’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Together, joined in effort by the burden, they staggered up the last steep of the mountain. Together, they chanted One! Two! Three! and crashed the log on to the great pile. Then they stepped back, laughing with triumphant pleasure.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Only one novel is a novel: that is a successful novel.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
We just got to go on, that’s all. That’s what grownups would do.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness.
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People don’t help much.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.
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 all right really, an’ then when you see him again; it’s like asthma an’ you can’t breathe.
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the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.
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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.
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The mask was a thing on it’s own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.
WILLIAM GOLDING