William Golding > Quotes

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Sucks to your ass-mar!”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The thing is - fear can't hurt you any more than a dream.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“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.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of mans heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Towards midnight the rain ceased and the clouds drifted away, so that the sky was scattered once more with the incredible lamps of stars. Then the breeze died too and there was no noise save the drip and tickle of water that ran out of clefts and spilled down, leaf by leaf, to the brown earth of the island. The air was cool, moist, and clear; and presently even the sound of the water was still. The beast lay huddled on the pale beach and the stains spread, inch by inch.

The edge of the lagoon became a streak of phosphorescence which advanced minutely, as the great wave of the tide flowed. The clear water mirrored the clear sky and the angular bright constellations. The line of phosphorescence bulged about the sand grains and little pebbles; it held them each in a dimple of tension, then suddenly accepted them with an inaudible syllable and moved on.

Along the shoreward edge of the shallows the advancing clearness was full of strange, moonbeam-bodied creatures with fiery eyes. Here and there a larger pebble clung to its own air and was covered with a coat of pearls. The tide swelled in over the rain-pitted sand and smoothed everything with a layer of silver. Now it touched the first of the stains that seeped from the broken body and the creatures made a moving patch of light as they gathered at the edge. 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. The strange, attendant creatures, with their fiery eyes and trailing vapours busied themselves round his head. The body lifted a fraction of an inch from the sand and a bubble of air escaped from the mouth with a wet plop. Then it turned gently in the water.

Somewhere over the darkened curve of the world the sun and moon were pulling; and the film of water on the earth planet was held, bulging slightly on one side while the solid core turned. The great wave of the tide moved further along the island and the water lifted. Softly, surrounded by a fringe of inquisitive bright creatures, itself a silver shape beneath the steadfast constellations, Simon's dead body moved out towards the open sea.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

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

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“People don't help much.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The rules!" shouted Ralph, "you're breaking the rules!"
"Who cares?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“What I mean is . . . Maybe it's only us . . .”
― William Golding

“Language fits over experience like a straight jacket.”
― William Golding

“The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

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

“What kind of human person has a favorite eraser?”
― William Golding

“Which is better--to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“Maybe," he said hesitantly, "maybe there is a beast." [...] "What I mean is, maybe it's only us.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.”
― William Golding

“We're not savages. We're English.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!”
― William Golding

“The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers but won't tell.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.”
― William Golding

“You'll get back to where you came from”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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

“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Roger stooped, picked up a stone, aimed and threw it at Henry-threw it to miss. The stone, that token of preposterous time, bounced five yards to Henry's right and fell in the water. Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger was conditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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, Lord of the Flies

“Life […] is scientific, that’s what it is.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“The officer grinned cheerfully at Ralph.
'We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war or something?'
Ralph nodded.
The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The kid needed a bath, a haircut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of ointment.
'Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?'
'Only two. And they've gone.'
The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph.
'Two? Killed?'
Ralph nodded again. Behind him, the whole island was shuddering with flame. The officer knew, as a rule, when people were telling the truth. He whistled softly.”
― William Golding

“The pile of guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leapfrog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and dim eyes, the blood—and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“It was, perhaps, no situation from which to face a charging badger.”
― William Golding, The Paper Men

“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, Lord of the Flies

“Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“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

“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