William Golding Quotes

To be sane in a mad time is bad for the brain, worse for the heart.

Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?" Malvolio: "Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art." Feste: "But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in you wits than a fool.

To overcome the anxieties and depressions of contemporary life, individuals must become independent of the social environment to the degree that they no longer respond exclusively in terms of its rewards and punishments. To achieve such autonomy, a person has to learn to provide rewards to herself. She has to develop the ability to find enjoyment and purpose regardless of external circumstances.

I have toyed with the idea of playing it straight. But, like I say, I really believe we are all out of our minds at some level.

Don’t worry if they say you’re crazy. They said that about me and yet I was saner than all of them. I knew. No matter. You know. Insane or sane, you know. It’s a good thing to know - no matter what they call it.

Some lose all mind and become soul,insane. some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual. some lose both and become accepted

There are worse things than being mad.

A sense of humor has been linked with longevity. It is a possibility that the mental attitude reflected in a lively sense of humor is an important factor predisposing some people toward long life.

When the whole world is crazy, it doesn't pay to be sane.

they worry about my sanity i join with them on that

Whoever's calm and sensible is insane!

If there were only one person in the world, is there any way he could be insane?

I think it's only right that crazy people should have their own city, but I cannot for the life of me see why a sane person would want to go there.

You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.

How could anyone stay sane with entire lifetimes stored in one human mind?

I think that we're all mentally ill. Those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better - and maybe not all that much better after all.

In a crazy world, it's only your insanity that will keep you sane

It is important to remember that at first blush, going sane feels just like going crazy.

It took less than half a second for me to realize that, as long as I was truly insane now, I might as well enjoy the delusions while they were pleasant.

You know, like, none of us would choose - no matter where we are in the world - would choose to you know become a member of Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" world, but how much choice is really the question.

I'd rather stay here with all the madmen than perish with the sadmen roaming free.

I believe I want adult sanity, which seems to me the only unalloyed form of heroism available today.

If in life we are surrounded by death, so too in the health of our intellect by madness.

Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose its moorings or lose its orientations. even in silence we are living our stories