Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
WILLIAM GOLDINGHe 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.
More William Golding Quotes
-
-
A star appeared…and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller.
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 -
My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
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 -
You have the older generation like Iris Murdoch and Angus Wilson who are not as old as Graham Greene, but still are coming on. I dare say anyone who knew the scene better than I know it could fill it in with a very satisfactory supply of novels.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Philosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
If faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
I don’t think they [contemporary writers] read me either. I mean, if we’re concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.
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