William Golding Quotes

As I'm writing, certain things become clear to me and certain things begin to feel right and make sense. The pieces start to fall into place.

I don't know that my schooling was conducive to wild ideas and creativity, but it gave me discipline, drive. They taught me how to think. I really know how to think.

Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.

True intelligence requires fabulous imagination.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.

If we would have new knowledge, we must get a whole world of new questions.

Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realize what's wrong with it.

The best types of problems are those that seem harder at first than when you think about it.

Research is not an obstacle, something to be frightened of. It can be one of the real joys of writing.

Learning is the new skill. Imagination, creation and asking new questions are at its core.

Smarter is always the answer.

People are a lot smarter than anyone gives them credit for being.

Philosophy is like trying to open a safe with a combination lock: each little adjustment of the dials seems to achieve nothing, only when everything is in place does the door open.

A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems... It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the unsolved ones.

The goal of education is not to increase the amount of knowledge but to create the possibilities for a child to invent and discover, to create men who are capable of doing new things.

Education is the basis of creative thought: the ability to go beyond asking why to why not.

Writing isn't necessarily about what one knows but what one wants to know.

This proving of such and such I found to be almost like cheating. You start somewhere, and then you go into a dark tunnel, and then you come out at another place. You find that you have proved what you wanted to prove, but in the tunnel, you don't see anything.

My generation is so intelligent.

I always try, if I can, to travel before I start a writing project. For me, travelling is my education. It inspires me, and it clears my mind and allows me to come back with a cleansed palate.

I always know how to play this game. It's about being smart.

Every one of you is a super genius if you just focus your common sense.

I don't make many mental mistakes. Yeah, I'm smarter than I look.

Observing is really the fuel to innovating, ultimately.