Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.

The thing is - fear can't hurt you any more than a dream.

The greatest ideas are the simplest.

We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?

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?

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

Sucks to your ass-mar!

What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?

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

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.

The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.

He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.

Which is better--to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?

They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.

The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.

People don't help much.

They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling unable to communicate.

The rules!" shouted Ralph, "you're breaking the rules!" "Who cares?

I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist.

Maybe," he said hesitantly, "maybe there is a beast." [...] "What I mean is, maybe it's only us.

He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again.

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

Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness.

Language fits over experience like a straight jacket.

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

Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.

I believe man suffers from an appalling ignorance of his own nature. I produce my own view in the belief that it may be something like the truth.

We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.

I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.

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...

Ralph... would treat the day's decisions as though he were playing chess. The only trouble was that he would never be a very good chess player.

If I blow the conch and they don't come back; then we've had it. We shan't keep the fire going. We'll be like animals. We'll never be rescued." "If you don't blow, we'll soon be animals anyway.

The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.

Worse than madness. Sanity.

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

We're not savages. We're English.

At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.

Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!

The trouble was, if you were a chief you had to think, you had to be wise.

This is our island. It's a good island. Until the grownups come to fetch us we'll have fun.

You'll get back to where you came from.

They accepted the pleasures of morning, the bright sun, the whelming sea and sweet air, as a time when play was good and life so full that hope was not necessary and therefore forgotten.

He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were.

We have a disharmony in our natures. We cannot live together without injuring each other.

Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery.

I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment.

And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

Are we savages or what?