Quotes from William Golding

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.

Language fits over experience like a straight jacket.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.

Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn't you?' said the head. For a moment or two the forest and all the other dimly appreciated places echoed with the parody of laughter. '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?

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

We're not savages. We're English.

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...

Worse than madness. Sanity.

Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.

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.

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

He knelt among the shadows and felt his isolation bitterly. They were savages it was true; but they were human.

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

You'll get back to where you came from.

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

Which is better -- to be a pack of painted Indians like you are, or to be sensible like Ralph is? Which is better -- to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things up?

The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not on any political system however apparently logical or respectable.