“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.”

“It wasn't until I was 37 that I grasped the great truth that you've got to write your own books and nobody else's, and then everything followed from there.”

“Bit by bit [the Second World War] really changed my view of what people were capable of, and therefore what human nature was.”

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

“I don't like the word 'allegorical', I don't like the word 'symbolic' - the word I really like is 'mythic', and people always think that means 'full of lies', whereas of course what it really means is 'full of truth which cannot be told in any other way but a story'.”

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

“Maybe, he said hesitantly, maybe there is a beast. The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in amazement. You, Simon? You believe in this? I don't know, said Simon. His heartbeats were choking him. [...]Ralph shouted. Hear him! He's got the conch! What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us. Nuts! That was from Piggy, shocked out of decorum.”