I want the truth of things. But there's nowhere to find it.

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.

You don't know how to live. You live.

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.

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'.

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. 'But . . .'
His heartbeats were choking him.
The storm broke.
'Sit down!'
'Shut up!'
'Take the conch!'
'Sod you!'
'Shut up!'
Ralph shouted.
'Hear him! He's got the conch!'
'What I mean is. Maybe . . . it's only us.'
'Nuts!'
That was Piggy, shocked out of decorum.
'We could be sort of . . .'
Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness.