110+ William Golding Quotes On Human Nature, Evil And Power

William Golding was an English novelist, poet, and playwright. He is best known for his novel Lord of the Flies, which won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983. Golding's other works include The Inheritors, Pincher Martin, and The Spire, which explore the human condition and the nature of evil. Following is our collection on famous quotes by William Golding on human nature, love, evil.

Top 10 William Golding Quotes

1. I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.
2. I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.
3. I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.
4. My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.
5. 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.
6. The greatest ideas are the simplest.
7. Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.
8. 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.
9. He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.
10. Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars.

William Golding Image Quotes

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

William Golding Short Quotes

• We're not savages. We're English.
• If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?
• How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?
• Which is better--to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?
• Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.
• Childhood is a disease - a sickness that you grow out of.
• What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?
• Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies!
• Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?
• There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

William Golding Quotes About World

Marx, Darwin and Freud are the three most crashing bores of the Western World. Simplistic popularization of their ideas has thrust our world into a mental straitjacket from which we can only escape by the most anarchic violence. — William Golding

To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself. It may be — William Golding

The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. — 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

William Golding Quotes About Writing

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry. — 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

Of the authors writing in English, I'd mention Shakespeare and Milton. But all this is terribly high-hat and makes me sound very po-faced, I'm afraid; however, I just happen to like these enormous, swinging, great creatures. — 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

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

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

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

Maybe half a dozen think they are a community, but, in general terms, I think English writers tend to face outwards, away from each other, and write in their own patch, as it were. — William Golding

I'm not a critic so much of my own writing. People must make up their own minds over that. — William Golding

Graham Greene at 82 years old was still writing, and I don't think anyone can deny the force, the expertise, and the unique quality of his writing, if you take his complete oeuvre. — William Golding

William Golding Quotes About Life

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

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

The journey of life is like a man riding a bicycle. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. We know that if he stops moving and does not get off he will fall off. — William Golding

Life should serve up its feast of experience in a series of courses. — William Golding

There's a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it. — William Golding

Life's scientific, but we don't know, do we? Not certainly, I mean. — William Golding

They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten. — William Golding

My father was very musical, and music plays quite a large part in my life. — William Golding

Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery. — William Golding

William Golding Famous Quotes And Sayings

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 who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience. — William Golding

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. — 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

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

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

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 mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work. I think this is very true of English writers, but perhaps not so true of French writers, who seem to read each other passionately, extensively, and endlessly, and who then talk about it to each other - which is splendid. — William Golding

How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad? — William Golding

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

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. — 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

Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in! — William Golding

It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable. — William Golding

Childhood is a disease -- a sickness that you grow out of. — William Golding

Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood. — William Golding

They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling unable to communicate. — William Golding

And I've been wearing specs since I was three. — William Golding

Philosophy and Religion-what are they when the wind blows and the water gets up in lumps? — William Golding

Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness. — William Golding

Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years. — William Golding

This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun. — 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

The water rose further and dressed Simon's coarse hair with brightness. The line of his cheek silvered and the turn of his shoulder became sculptured marble. — William Golding

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

The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise. — William Golding

Experimental novels are sometimes terribly clever and very seldom read. But the story that appeals to the child sitting on your knee is the one that satisfies the curiosity we all have about what happened then, and then, and then. This is the final restriction put on the technique of telling a story. A basic thing called story is built into the human condition. It's what we are; it's something to which we react. — William Golding

I have a confession to make. The love affair of my life has been with the Greek language. I have now reached the age when it has occurred to me that I may have read some books for the last time. I suddenly thought that there are books I cannot bear not to read again before I die. One that stands out a mile is Homer's Iliad. — William Golding

As soon as Oliver Twist is serialized, people who would never dream of reading [Charles] Dickens, if they hadn't seen him on their box, buy the paperback. — William Golding

The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness. — William Golding

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against this as a method, but it is not what English writers do. — William Golding

I also know Patrick White in Australia, both personally and as a writer, and Salman Rushdie in India. — 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

You'll get back to where you came from. — William Golding

If 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. — William Golding

He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again. — William Golding

We have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other. — William Golding

However you disguise novels, they are always biographies. — William Golding

Only one novel is a novel: that is a successful novel. — William Golding

The rules!" shouted Ralph, "you're breaking the rules!" "Who cares? — William Golding

The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible. — William Golding

What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? — William Golding

Couldn't a fire outrun a galloping horse? — William Golding

The man who tells the tale if he has a tale worth telling will know exactly what he is about and this business of the artist as a sort of starry-eyed inspired creature, dancing along, with his feet two or three feet above the surface of the earth, not really knowing what sort of prints he's leaving behind him, is nothing like the truth. — William Golding

The thing is - fear can't hurt you any more than a dream. — William Golding

The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers and won't tell. — William Golding

One tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one. — William Golding

Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother. — 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. — William Golding

I think they've got 250 languages in Nigeria, and so English is a sort of lingua franca between the 250 languages. — William Golding

Then you have people coming up like Malcolm Bradbury, a relatively young writer who deals with the academic scene and deals with it, I think, brilliantly. — William Golding

I think there might even come a time when I would read Virgil again. Ovid's Metamorphoses, perhaps, not because the music goes round and round and never comes out, but because it's an extraordinary picture of ceaseless change that never comes to an end. — William Golding

the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. — William Golding

Even if you got rid of paper, you would still have story-tellers. In fact, you had the story-tellers before you had the paper. — William Golding

I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a story teller. — William Golding

Put simply the novel stands between us and the hardening concept of statistical man. There is no other medium in which we can live for so long and so intimately with a character. That is the service a novel renders. — William Golding

What could be safer than the bus center with its lamps and wheels? — William Golding

I hope my books make statements about our general condition. — William Golding

Maybe, he said hesitantly, maybe there is a beast. The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in amazement. You, Simon? You believe in this? I don't know, said Simon. His heartbeats were choking him. [...] Ralph shouted. Hear him! He's got the conch! What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us. Nuts! That was from Piggy, shocked out of decorum. — William Golding

We did everything adults would do. What went wrong? — William Golding

For a small island, the place is remarkably diverse. Writers tend to see things from their own points of view, looking in one direction very much. — 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

Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us. — William Golding

No human endeavour can ever be wholly good... it must always have a cost. — William Golding

One's intelligence may march about and about a problem, but the solution does not come gradually into view. One moment it is not. The next it is there. — William Golding

What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others. — 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

I really feel the novel has certain conveniences about it and has something so fundamental about it you could almost say that as long as there is paper, there is going to be the novel. — 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

We just got to go on, that's all. That's what grownups would do. — William Golding

Worse than madness. Sanity. — William Golding

A star appeared...and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement. — William Golding

For a small island [Great Britain], the place is remarkably diverse. — William Golding

Life Lessons by William Golding

1. William Golding's works often explore the darker side of human nature, and can teach us to be aware of our own capacity for evil and to strive for goodness.
2. His novels also emphasize the importance of community, and the need to work together to create a better world.
3. Finally, Golding's works often explore the power of symbols and the need to find meaning in life, which can help us to live more meaningful lives.