William Golding is one of the most famous (and controversial) writers of his time--perhaps best known for his novel, Lord of the Flies. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1983 for this novel, but he's also well respected for other works of literature: plays, novels, poetry and essays. Here are a few representative quotes from William Golding.
- "My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder."
- William Golding, New York Times, Oct. 7, 1983 - "Sleep is when all the unsorted stuff comes flying out as from a dustbin upset in a high wind."
- William Golding, Pincher Martin - "It may be -- I hope it is -- redemption to guess and perhaps perceive that the universe, the hell which we see for all its beauty, vastness, majesty, is only part of a whole which is quite unimaginable."
- William Golding, A Moving Target - "It is at least scientifically respectable to postulate that at the centre of a black hole the laws of nature no longer apply. Since most scientists are just a bit religious and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole while his religious intellect believes in them outside it."
- William Golding, Nobel Prize in Literature - Lecture, Dec. 7, 1983 - "Childhood is a disease -- a sickness that you grow out of."
- William Golding, Guardian, Jun. 22, 1990 - "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 - "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 - "Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, 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. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things."
- William Golding, A Moving Target - "There is, they say, no fool like an old fool."
- William Golding, Nobel Prize in Literature - Lecture, Dec. 7, 1983 - "We need more humanity, more care, more love. There are those who expect a political system to produce that; and others who expect the love to produce the system. My own faith is that the truth of the future lies between the two and we shall behave humanly and a bit humanely, stumbling along, haphazardly generous and gallant, foolishly and meanly wise until the rape of our planet is seen to be the preposterous folly that it is."
- William Golding, Nobel Prize in Literature - Lecture, Dec. 7, 1983 - "Fear can't hurt you any more than a dream."
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies
