101+ William Golding Quotes From The Influential Lord Of The Flies Author

William Golding is known for his unique and insightful work of fiction, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

Born and raised in Newquay, United Kingdom, Sir William Golding knew from when he was a child that he wanted to be a writer. And a writer he became, earning numerous laurels for his work.

Having worked several odd jobs with theater companies whilst growing up, William eventually took up the role of a schoolmaster at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury. He joined the Royal Navy during the war, and came back soon after the war to resume his duties as a schoolmaster at Bishop Wordsworth's.

It is said that William Golding mainly wrote 'Lord Of The Flies' because of these experiences through World War II. The things he witnessed gave him an in-depth insight into life and human conditions.

He wanted to turn these experiences into lessons for the youth who would read his work.

After reading a book that was similar to the idea he had, Golding asked his wife if he should pursue writing what he had in mind. His wife encouraged him to do so and thereby came the book he is most known for, the book that earned him a cult following worldwide: 'Lord Of The Flies'.

According to William Golding, human nature, when free from the active constraints of society, seems to draw people away from common sense, thus leading them toward savagery.

His fundamental argument is that human beings are savage by nature, and are mainly moved by urges toward dominance and brutality over others, if not kept in check.

Some of the most important quotes said by Golding include "I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been", and, "Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us".

These William Golding quotes gie us an insight into the works of his mind.

We've collected a bunch of the best William Golding quotes from the influential 'Lord Of The Flies' author. As you enjoy these quotes, do also have a look at our ['Lord Of The Flies' quotes] and John Steinbeck quotes too.

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The Best Of Sir William Golding Quotes

The best of the 'Lord Of The Flies' author, Sir William Golding quotes.

1. "Words may, through the devotion, the skill, the passion and the luck of writers, prove to be the most powerful thing in the world."

-William Golding.

2. "The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream."

-William Golding.

3. "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.

4. "The greatest ideas are the simplest."

-William Golding.

5. "Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head."

-William Golding.

6. "I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist."

-William Golding.

7. "My early memories of my birthplace have a certain glamour about them."

-William Golding.

8. "There aren’t any grownups. We shall have to look after ourselves."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

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

-William Golding.

10. "At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing."

-William Golding.

11. "They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling unable to communicate."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

12. "If faces were different when lit from above or below – what was a face? What was anything?"

-William Golding.

13. "Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery."

-William Golding.

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

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

15. "Language fits over experience like a straight jacket."

-William Golding.

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

-William Golding.

17. "People don't help much."

-William Golding.

18. "Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life."

-William Golding.

19. "I'm frightened. Of us."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

20. "He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

William Golding Quotes About ‘Lord Of The Flies’

William Golding quotes from the famous book by Sir William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies', featuring the much loved characters Jack, Ralph and their "true, wise friend called Piggy".

21. "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'.

22. "He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

23. "What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What’s grownups going to think?"

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

24. "If you were a chief, you had to think, you had to be wise."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

25. "Ralph sat on a fallen trunk, his left side to the sun. On his right were most of the choir; on his left the larger boys who had not known each other before the evacuation; before him small children squatted in the grass."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

26. "The skull regarded Ralph like one who knows all the answers but won’t tell."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

27. "The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

28. "'I ought to be chief', said Jack with simple arrogance, 'because I’m chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.'"

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

29. "Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

30. "As long as there's light we're brave enough."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

31. "Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

32. "As a time when play was good and life so full, that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

33. "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, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

34. "Fancy thinking the beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you?"

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

35. "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 the way they are?"

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

36. "Childhood is a disease - a sickness that you grow out of."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

37. "He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

38. "Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

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

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

40. "I know there isn't no beast -not with claws and all that, I mean - but I know there isn't no fear, either."

-William Golding, 'Lord Of The Flies'.

William Golding Quotes About All Things Life

Some interesting William Golding quotes about women, beliefs and his life in general.

41. "I am not a theologian or a philosopher. I am a storyteller."

-William Golding.

42. "I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature."

-William Golding.

43. "Through our mother, we are part of the solar system and part through that of the whole universe."

-William Golding.

44. "I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment."

-William Golding.

45. "We know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it."

-William Golding.

46. "I was once a little boy – I have been a brother, a father, I am going to be a grandfather."

-William Golding.

47. "We have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other."

-William Golding.

48. "The journey of life is like a man riding a bicycle."

-William Golding.

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

-William Golding.

50. "We don't know much about our current selves, do we?"

-William Golding.

51. "If you accept life dully, you can go through it moving not among things but among words."

-William Golding.

52. "Here at last was the imagined but never fully realized place leaping into real life."

-William Golding.

53. "I produce my own view in the belief that it may be something like the truth."

-William Golding.

54. "Heaven lies around us in our infancy."

-William Golding.

55. "That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things."

-William Golding.

56. "We are the children of that great blue white jewel. "

-William Golding.

57. "Who would sharpen a point against the darkness of the world?"

-William Golding.

58. "I've always been puzzled... between the imaginative world and the real world."

-William Golding.

59. "In the blazing poetry of the fact, we are children of the stars."

-William Golding.

60. "It's simpler to believe in a miracle."

-William Golding.

William Golding Quotes About Writing

Some great William Golding quotes for writers about books, writing and everything in between.

61. "Therefore I want people to take them seriously. And to read it twice of course is taking it seriously."

-William Golding.

62. "Even if you got rid of paper, you would still have storytellers. In fact, you had the storytellers before you had the paper."

-William Golding.

63. "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.

64. "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.

65. "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.

66. "And if you can get people to understand their own humanity – well, that’s the job of the writer."

-William Golding.

67. "Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature."

-William Golding.

68. "I think English writers tend to face outwards, away from each other, and write in their own patch, as it were."

-William Golding.

69. "I write my novels about ideas which concern me deeply and I think are important."

-William Golding.

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

-William Golding.

71. "I hope my books make statements about our general condition."

-William Golding.

72. "History is the nothing people write about a nothing."

-William Golding.

73. "Every novel is a biography."

-William Golding.

74. I'm against the picture of the artist as a starry-eyed visionary not really in control or knowing what he does."

-William Golding.

75. "Nothing is so impenetrable as laughter in a language you don't understand."

-William Golding.

76. "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.

77. "I mean, if we're concerned genuinely with writing, I think we probably get on with our work."

-William Golding.

78. "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.

79. "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.

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

-William Golding.

Essential William Golding Quotes

Here are the essential William Golding quotes to summarize his life and work.

81. "Girls say to me... very reasonably, 'why isn't it a bunch of girls? Why did you write this about a bunch of boys?'"

-William Golding.

82. "I listened to novelists by the dozen."

-William Golding.

83. "I suppose drama can either take the place of a novel or can be very closely allied with it."

-William Golding.

84. "Now the only way in which you can keep a reader's attention to a story is in his wanting to know what is going to happen next."

-William Golding.

85. "In India the odd thing is that English is this almost artificial language floating on the surface of a place with about fifty other languages."

-William Golding.

86. "Of the authors writing in English, I'd mention Shakespeare and Milton."

-William Golding.

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

-William Golding.

88. "The love affair of my life has been with the Greek language."

-William Golding.

89. "Life's scientific, but we don’t know, do we? Not certainly, I mean."

-William Golding.

90. "Sleep is where we touch what is better left unexamined."

-William Golding.

91. "I play the piano passionately and inaccurately."

-William Golding.

92. "There's a story and there's a listener, whose attention you have to keep."

-William Golding.

93. "Honestly, I haven't the time to read contemporary writers."

-William Golding.

94. "As long as you go on telling him a story, he will listen."

-William Golding.

95. "I could perceive my nothingness in this scheme."

-William Golding.

96. "For a small island, the place is remarkably diverse."

-William Golding.

97. "As far as the novel is concerned in my own country, I think it's in a pretty healthy state."

-William Golding.

98. "When I am off, there are so many things I like doing, it doesn't really matter."

-William Golding.

99. "The Navy's a very gentlemanly business."

-William Golding.

100. "Writers tend to see things from their own points of view."

-William Golding.

101. "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.

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

-William Golding.

At Kidadl, we have created lots of family-friendly quotes for everyone! If you liked these William Golding quotes said by the much loved author, why not take a look at our [Hemingway love quotes], or Thomas Wolfe quotes too?

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