William Golding Quotes

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...

You're a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!

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...

Grownups know things, said Piggy. They ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be alright — -
They wouldn't set fire to the island. Or lose — -
They'd build a ship — -
The three boys stood in the darkness, striving unsuccessfully to convey the majesty of adult life.
They wouldn't quarrel — -
Or break my specs — -
Or talk about a beast — -
If only they could get a message to us, cried Ralph desperately. If only they could send us something grownup. . . a sign or something.

There have been so many interpretations of the story that I'm not going to choose between them. Make your own choice. They contradict each other, the various choices. The only choice that really matters, the only interpretation of the story, if you want one, is your own. Not your teacher's, not your professor's, not mine, not a critic's, not some authority's. The only thing that matters is, first, the experience of being in the story, moving through it. Then any interpretation you like. If it's yours, then that's the right one, because what's in a book is not what an author thought he put into it, it's what the reader gets out of it.

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

The two boys faced each other. There was a brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled common sense.

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

What I mean is... maybe it's only us...

If faces were different when lit from above or below — what was a face? What was anything?

The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge.

The chant was audible but at that distance still wordless. Behind Jack walked the twins, carrying a great stake on their shoulders. The gutted carcass of a pig swung from the stake, swinging heavily as the twins toiled over the uneven ground. The pig's head hung down with gaping neck and seemed to search for something on the ground. At last the words of the chant floated up to them, across the bowl of blackened wood and ashes. "Kill the pig! Cut her throat! Spill the blood!" Yet as the words became audible, the procession reached the steepest part of the mountain, and in a minute or two the chant had died away.

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

Înțelese deodată plictiseala acestei vieți unde fiecare poteca era o improvizație, iar o buna parte din viata diurna ți-o petreceai urmărindu-ți piciorele

I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior [to men] and always have been.