“People don't help much.”

“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'.”

“But for all the feet that had trodden it, it remained ordinary dust, which seemed to make everything much sadder.”

“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.”

“Life's scientific, but we don't know, do we? Not certainly, I mean.”

“History is the nothing people write about a nothing.”

“You don't even care enough about us to hate us, do you?”