I hope my books make statements about our general condition.
WILLIAM GOLDINGIf I blow the conch and they don’t come back; then we’ve had it. We shan’t keep the fire going. We’ll be like animals. We’ll never be rescued.” “If you don’t blow, we’ll soon be animals anyway.
More William Golding Quotes
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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 -
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.
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The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won’t tell.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Childhood is a disease – a sickness that you grow out of.
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 -
Life’s scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.
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 -
While 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.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Which is better–to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
But forgiveness must not only be given but received also.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
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 GOLDING -
How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
Worse than madness. Sanity.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off and on. You can say that when I am on, when I know I have a book which I am going to write, then I write two thousand words a day. That’s so many pages longhand.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
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 -
And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers….Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
There is, they say, no fool like an old fool.
WILLIAM GOLDING -
What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?
WILLIAM GOLDING -
A star appeared…and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement.
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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 -
They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling unable to communicate.
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