William Golding Quotes

Whatever people may say about my books - and it always amazes me when people don't like them, but sometimes they don't - the epigraphs have always been top-drawer. I think having that at the outset protects me from a lot of potential problems.

And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it.

My novels are very much the same, as I think many people's novels are.

Dr. Lecter would have more sustenance on the spacecraft from Alien because there are more people to eat. I think he'd get hungry after a while in the Overlook - I can't imagine him eating canned food.

There are a lot of discussions where people will decide that James Bond is a superhero, because he's a larger-than-life hero who beats the bad guys by doing larger-than-life things. And I don't think that's a useful definition.

When the psychiatrist approves of a person's actions, he judges that person to have acted with "free choice"; when he disapproves,he judges him to have acted without "free choice." It is small wonder that people find "free choice" a confusing idea: "free choice" appears to refer to what the person being judged (often called the "patient") does, whereas it is actually what the person making the judgment (often a psychiatrist or other mental health worker) thinks.

The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from, the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.

Fiction is a place where people can meet, where they take the time to very seriously examine and think about the experiences of other people and about the sorts of moral decisions those characters are making.

Reputation is a very interesting thing, and I always give people the benefit of the doubt, and I think that there's a part of all of us, especially in a generation where a lot of the stuff gets recorded.

It's funny, people talk about the characters they play and who do you sort of see yourself as or which ones maybe were closest to you and in some ways.

I find it strange that - at least in my take on it - the people who are the most alarmed about the dire times we live in are the ones who seem to be humorless, in their taste for poetry anyway. Humor is just an ingredient. It's always been in poetry. It kind of dropped out of poetry I think during the 19th and up to the mid-twentieth century. But it's found its way back. And it's simply an ingredient.

I think it's despicable. I also think it's frightening that we seem to live through history over and over again. And I don't know if I'm the only one. I feel like, when you read through history books, you always judge those people in that time.

I don't think that I would ever, while writing, think to myself, "I need a little more psychological realism."

You cannot lecture another people about what you think is right or wrong based on your value system unless you're willing to accept others imposing their value system on you.

Whenever people say a coincidence in a novel is implausible, I think, Do I have a story for you.

I'm not like a politician that goes around talking about family values. And I can't get fired from being a funny person because I did something that most people are disapproving of. I think people are just obsessed with this morality that people perceive as being the right and wrong way of doing stuff.

I have this theory that there are two kinds of people in the world, people who stop at a traffic accident and those that just drive by. If I see a traffic accident, I am going to stop. I do notice. I don't think that makes me a good or bad person, or anybody else better or worse.

there are people who read my work and accuse me of being political! As far as I'm concerned that's like accusing a dog of having a bark!

I've concluded that the metric by which God will assess my life isn't dollars, but the individual people whose lives I've touched. I think that's the way it will work for us all. Don't worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people.

I appreciate good criticism and I think it's really important. I don't like it when it's consumer advocacy, like how you should spend your $60. Great criticism is a kind of literature. I've written some criticism, and I really enjoy it because I think it's important for people to know that theatre is vital. Criticism is really unevenly distributed in this town. Obviously the power of the Times is discouraging. It's killing new plays, demolishing one after another.

I used to think the world was divided into good people and bad people, that you could pin responsibility for evil on certain definite people and punish the guilty. I’m still going through the motions.

[Jerome David] Salinger was really taken to the cleaners by nasty critics in his day. I think Joan Didion was one of the people who attacked him in a very unfair way.

People seem to think there is something inherently noble and virtuous in the desire to go for a walk.

I hate everything that does not relate to literature, conversations bore me (even if they relate to literature), to visit people bores me, the sorrows and joys of my relatives bore me to the very soul. Conversation takes the importance, the seriousness, the truth, out of everything I think.

I don't think anyone is going to Hell, because it only exists in the minds of people who wish ill will on others.