William Golding

“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!”

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

“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”

“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”

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

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

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

“He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.”

“Which is better – to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?”

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

“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.”

“I am by nature a dealer in words, and words are the most powerful drug known to humanity.”

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

“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've got to have rules and obey them. After all, we're not savages. We're English, and the English are best at everything.”

“Language fits over experience like a straight-jacket.”