William Golding

I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds…

— 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

“But for all the feet that had trodden it, it remained ordinary dust, which seemed to make everything much sadder.”

— William Golding

Then you have people coming up like Malcolm Bradbury, a relatively young writer who deals with the academic scene and deals with…

— William Golding

“We've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English; and the English are the best at…

— William Golding

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

— William Golding

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now-and the ship had gone.”

— 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…

— 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…

— 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.…

— 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…

— William Golding

He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering…

— William Golding

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

— William Golding

I began to write when I was seven, and I have been writing off and on ever since. It is still off…

— William Golding

I have been in many countries, and I have found there people examining their own love of life, sense of peril, their…

— William Golding

While I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking; and since I was…

— 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…

— William Golding

I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature. I produce my own view in the belief that it…

— William Golding

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

— William Golding

Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps…

— William Golding

“The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge. Sam twisted and the obscene word shot out of him. "--dance?" Memory of the dance…

— William Golding

“And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the…

— William Golding

Before the Second World War, I believed in the perfectability of social man; that a correct structure of society produced goodwill; and…

— William Golding