“There's a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.”

“If you accept life dully, you can go through it moving not among things but among words.”

“This toy of voting was almost as pleasing as the conch. Jack started to protest but the clamor changed from the general wish for a chief to an election by acclaim of Ralph himself. None of the boys could have found good reason for this; what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy while the most obvious leader was Jack. But there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out: there was his size, and attractive appearance; and most obscurely, yet most powerfully, there was the conch. The being that had blown that, had sat waiting for them on the platform with the delicate thing balanced on his knees, was set apart.”

“...could a face have been fashioned to fit the attitude of his consciousness where it lay suspended between life and death that face would have worn a snarl.”

“He doesn't mind if he dies... indeed, he would like to die; but yet he fears to fall. He would welcome a long sleep; but not at the price of falling to it.”

“Perhaps the various burnings of the Alexandria Library were necessary, like those Australian Forest Fires without which the new seeds cannot burst their shells and make a young, healthy forest.”

“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.”