“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.”
“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it's only us.”
“We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?”
“I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.”
“The greatest ideas are the simplest.”
“Sucks to your ass-mar!”
“If faces were different when lit from above or below -- what was a face? What was anything?”
“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away.”
“He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.”
“The mask was a thing on it's own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-conciousness.”
“They walked along, two continents of experience and feeling unable to communicate.”
“People don't help much.”
“I'm scared of him," said Piggy, "and that's why I know him. If you're scared of someone you hate him but you can't stop thinking about him. You kid yourself he's all right really, an' then when you see him again; it's like asthma an' you can't breathe...”
“He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were.”
“They looked at each other, baffled, in love and hate.”
“Which is better--to have laws and agree, or to hunt and kill?”
“The rules!" shouted Ralph, "you're breaking the rules!"
"Who cares?”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now-and the ship had gone.”
“Are we savages or what?”
“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.”
“This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and a shirt.”
“The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life.”
“We musn't let anything happen to Piggy, must we?”
“I'm frightened. Of us.”
“He noticed, without understanding, how the flames were visible now against the dull light. Evening was come, not with calm beauty but with the threat of violence”
“His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of mans heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance
Lord of the Flies quotes Jack
I ought to be chief...because I'm chapter chorister and head boy. I can sing C sharp.
His specs – use them as burning glasses!
I agree with Ralph. We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything. So we’ve got to do the right things.
I thought I might kill.
Eat! Damn you!
" The conch doesnt count on top of the mountain" Said Jack," So you shut up."
Bollocks to the rules! We’re strong – we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat - !
I’m not going to play anymore. Not with you...I’m not going to be a part of Ralph’s lot—
Sharpen a stick at both ends.
No! How could we--kill--it?
“Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Spill her blood.”
Lord of the Flies quotes Piggy
Didn’t you hear what the pilot said? About the atom bomb? They’re all dead.
Acting like a crowd of kids!
Give me my specs!
That little ‘un that had a mark on his face—where is he now? I tell you I don’t see him.
I know there isn’t no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn’t no fear, either...Unless we get frightened of people.
What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? What's grownups going to think?
[Jack] hates you too, Ralph...You got him over the fire; an’ you’re chief an’ he isn’t… He can’t hurt you: but if you stand out of the way he’d hurt the next thing. And that’s me.
Now you done it. You been rude about his hunters.
Come away. There’s going to be trouble. And we’ve had our meat.
That's right. We was on the outside. We never done nothing, we never seen nothing.
Lord of the Flies quotes Simon
As if it wasn’t a good island… As if...the beastie, the beastie or the snake-thing, was real. Remember?
We used [Piggy’s] specs...He helped that way.
I wanted—to go to a place...just a place I know. A place in the jungle.
Maybe there is a beast… Maybe it’s only us.
You’ll get back all right. I think so, anyway.
“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! 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?”
“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.”
Lord of the Flies quotes about the Conch
And another thing. We can’t have everybody talking at once. We’ll have to have ‘Hands up’ like at school.” . . . “Then I’ll give him the conch. . . . I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking.”
Ralph took the conch from where it lay on the polished seat and held it to his lips; but then he hesitated and did not blow. He held the shell up instead and showed it to them and they understood.
“Conch! Conch!” shouted Jack. “We don’t need the conch anymore. We know who ought to say things. What good did Simon do speaking, or Bill, or Walter? It’s time some people knew they’ve got to keep quiet and leave deciding things to the rest of us.”
The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.
“the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.”
He laid the conch with great care in the grass at his feet. The humiliating tears were running from the corner of each eye. “I’m not going to play any longer. Not with you.”
“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.”
“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.”
Lord of the Flies quotes beast
“Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! 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?”
“I know there isn't no beast—not with claws and all that, I mean—but I know there isn't no fear, either."
Piggy paused.
"Unless—"
Ralph moved restlessly.
"Unless what?"
"Unless we get frightened of people.”
“The beast was harmless and horrible; and the news must reach the others as soon as possible.”
“You're a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!”
“He wants to know what you’re going to do about the snake-thing.”
“Well then—I’ve been all over this island. By myself. If there were a beast I’d have seen it. Be frightened because you’re like that—but there is no beast in the forest.”
"Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!” The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face.
Lord of the Flies quotes on the fire
“The boys were dancing. The pile was so rotten, and now so tinder-dry, that whole limbs yielded passionately to the yellow flames that poured upwards and shook a great beards of flame twenty feet in the air. For yards round the fire the heat was like a blow, and the breeze was a river of sparks. Trunks crumbled to a white dust.”
“There’s another thing. We can help them to find us. If a ship comes near the island they may not notice us. So we must make smoke on top of the mountain. We must make a fire.”
The separate noises of the fire merged into a drumroll that seemed to shake the mountain.
“How can we make a fire?”
Suddenly he blundered into the open, found himself again in that open space—and there was the fathom-wide grin of the skull, no longer ridiculing a deep blue patch of sky but jeering up into a blanket of smoke. Then Ralph was running beneath trees, with the grumble of the forest explained. They had smoked him out and set the island on fire.
The wood was not so dry as the fuel they had used on the mountain. Much of it was damply rotten and full of insects that scurried; logs had to be lifted from the soil with care or they crumbled into sodden powder.
“Fires are like lives, they are started and they are ended.”
“The fire roared in approval, crackling with life as it consumed everything in its path.”
Now you been and set the whole island on fire.
“The fire roared like a monster, its hunger threatening to devour them whole.”
Lord of the Flies quotes on fear
“The thing is - fear can't hurt you any more than a dream.”
“He forgot his wounds, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear”
“So the last part, the bit we can all talk about, is kind of deciding on the fear.
We've got to talk about this fear and decide there's nothing in it.”
Tired though he was, he could not relax and fall into a well of sleep for fear of the tribe.
Ralph pointed fearfully at Eric's face, which was striped with scars where the bushes had torn him.
They were savages it was true; but they were human, and the ambushing fears of the deep night were coming on.
He moved the conch gently, looking beyond them at nothing, remembering the beastie, the snake, the fire, the talk of fear.
A sick fear and rage swept him.
The derisive laughter that rose had fear in it and condemnation.
They set off again, the hunters bunched a little by fear of the mentioned beast, while Jack quested ahead.