26 quotes
I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men — they are far superior and always have been.
Introduction to his reading of Lord of the Flies in the unabridged audio version (1980)
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.
Lord of the Flies (1954)
"How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?"
Lord of the Flies (1954)
Sleep is when all unsorted stuff comes as from a dustbin upset in a high wind.
Pincher Martin (1956)
Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.
A Moving Target (1982)
However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick.
Lord of the Flies (1954)
I must say that anyone who moved through those years [World War II] without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey must have been blind or wrong in the head.
The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he's written it.
The Herr Doctor does not know about peoples.
Free Fall (1959)
"This is our island. It’s a good island. Until the grown-ups come to fetch us we’ll have fun."
Lord of the Flies (1954)
What was the sensible thing to do?
There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch.
Lord of the Flies (1954)
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!"
Lord of the Flies (1954)
"Aren't there any grownups at all?"
"I don't think so."
The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him. In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy.
"No grownups!"
Lord of the Flies (1954)
There was no Piggy to talk sense. There was no solemn assembly for debate nor dignity of the conch.
Lord of the Flies (1954)
Now we, if not in the spirit, have been caught up to see our earth, our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space.
Nobel prize lecture (1983)
His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.
Lord of the Flies (1954)
To be in a world which is a hell, to be of that world and neither to believe in or guess at anything but that world, is not merely hell but the only possible damnation: the act of a man damning himself.
A Moving Target (1982)
"I was the only boy in our school what had asthma," said the fat boy with a touch of pride. "And I've been wearing specs since I was three."
Lord of the Flies (1954)
I will tell you what man is....He is a freak, an ejected foetus robbed of his natural development, thrown out into the world with a naked covering of parchment, with too little room for his teeth and a soft bulging skull like a bubble. But nature stirs a pudding there...
Pincher Martin (1956)
"Aren't you going to swim?"
Piggy shook his head.
"I can't swim. I wasn't allowed. My asthma—"
"Sucks to your ass-mar!"
Piggy bore this with a kind of humble patience.
Lord of the Flies (1954)