William Golding Quotes

I'm against the picture of the artist as a starry-eyed visionary not really in control or knowing what he does. I'd almost prefer the word 'craftsman'. He's like one of those old-fashioned ship builde...

I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.

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?

We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.

-I got the conch!" --Piggy (in Lord of the Flies), attempting Democracy

With lack of sleep and too much understanding I grow a little crazy, I think, like all men at sea who live too close to each other and too close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon...

He knelt among the shadows and felt his isolation bitterly. They were savages it was true; but they were human.

People don't help much.

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.

Now we, if not in the spirit, have been caught up to see our earth, our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space. We have no excuse now for supposing her riches inexhaustible nor the area we have...

They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.

Allow me to tell you, Mr Taylor," said I, but quietly as the occasion demanded, "that one gentleman does not rejoice at the misfortune of another in public".

I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men they are far superior and always have been.

He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.

It's simpler to believe in a miracle.

Girls say to me, very reasonably, 'why isn't it a bunch of girls? Why did you write this about a bunch of boys?' Well, my reply is I was once a little boy - I have been a brother, a father, I am going...

The greatest ideas are the simplest.

I don't like the word 'allegorical', I don't like the word 'symbolic' - the word I really like is 'mythic', and people always think that means 'full of lies', whereas of course what it really means is...

I spit upon your God!

I do think that art that doesn't communicate is useless.