Close Quarters Quotes

“O she doth teach the torches to burn bright!”
― William Golding, Close Quarters

“Of all human activities how we have chosen time and again to turn to our experience of the sea! To be three sheets in the wind, to sail too near the wind, to recognize someone by the cut of his jib, to be brought up all standing, to be adrift, to be on the rocks, to be half-seas over, to be sunk without trace—good Lord, we might fill a book with the effect on our language of the sea affair! Now here was metaphor come across at its origin. We, our ship, had been taken flat aback!”
― William Golding, Close Quarters

“Life should serve up its feast of experience in a series of courses. We should have time to assimilate, if not digest one before we attack another. We should have a pause, not so much for contemplation as for rest. However, life does not operate in such a reasonable fashion but huddles its courses together, sometimes two, three or what seems to be the whole meal on a single dish.”
― William Golding, Close Quarters

“The only thing to be learnt from history is that nobody learns from history!”
― William Golding, Close Quarters