Great Throughts Treasury

"A crowd of grade-three thinkers, all shouting the same thing, all warming their hands at the fire of their own prejudices, will not thank you for pointing out the contradictions in their beliefs. Man is a gregarious animal, and enjoys agreement as cows will graze all the same way on the side of a hill."

"Anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey, must have been blind or wrong in the head."

"Among the virtues and vices that make up the British character, we have one vice, at least, that Americans ought to view with sympathy. For they appear to be the only people who share it with us. I mean our worship of the antique. I do not refer to beauty or even historical association. I refer to age, to a quantity of years."

"An orotundity, which I define as Nobelitis a pomposity in which one is treated as representative of more than oneself by someone conscious of representing more than himself."

"A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy's fingers now flashed on the delicate curve [of the shell] like a star."

"Are we savages or what?"

"A star appeared...and was momentarily eclipsed by some movement."

"Aren't you going to swim?" Piggy shook his head. "I can't swim. I wasn't allowed. My asthma?""

"Aren't there any grownups at all?" "I don't think so." The fair boy said this solemnly; but then the delight of a realized ambition overcame him. In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. "No grownups!""

"Art is partly communication, but only partly. The rest is discovery."

"Because the rules are the only thing we've got!" But Jack was shouting against him. "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 ? !""

"Before the Second World War I believed in the perfectibility of social man; that a correct structure of society would produce goodwill; and that therefore you could remove all social ills by a reorganisation of society... but after the war I did not because I was unable to. I had discovered what one man could do to another... I must say that anyone who moved through those years without understanding that man produces evil as a bee produces honey must have been blind or wrong in the head."

"At length Ralph got up and went to the conch. He took the shell caressingly with both hands and knelt, leaning against the trunk."

"At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing."

"Basically I'm an optimist. Intellectually I can see man's balance is about fifty-fifty, and his chances of blowing himself up are about one to one. I can't see this any way but intellectually. I'm just emotionally unable to believe that he will do this. This means that I am by nature an optimist and by intellectual conviction a pessimist, I suppose."

"By him stood Piggy still holding out the talisman, the fragile, shining beauty of the shell. The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred. High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever."

"But a sign came down from the world of grownups, though at the time there was no child awake to read it. There was a sudden bright explosion and corkscrew trail across the sky; then darkness again and stars."

"Behind them on the grass the headless and paunched body of a sow lay where they had dropped it."

"But forgiveness must not only be given but received also."

"Childhood is a disease - a sickness that you grow out of."

"Daddy said they haven't found all the animals in the sea yet."

"Did you hear that? Says he saw the thing in the dark?" "He still says he saw the beastie. It came and went away again an' came back and wanted to eat him." "He was dreaming." Laughing, Ralph looked for confirmation round the ring of faces. The older boys agreed; but here and there among the little ones was the doubt that required more than rational assurance."

"Fear can't hurt you any more than a dream. There aren't any beasts to be afraid of on this island....Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies!"

"Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things."

"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?"

"Couldn't a fire outrun a galloping horse?"

"Even the sounds of nightmare from the other shelters no longer reached him, for he was back to where came from, feeding the ponies with sugar over the garden wall."

"He [Jack] began to dance and his laughter became a bloodthirsty snarling."

"Hair much too long, tangled here and there, knotted round a dead leaf or twig; clothes, worn away, stiff like his own with sweat, put on, not for decorum or comfort but out of custom; the skin of the body scurfy with brine?"

"He [Ralph] saw a shelter burst into flames and the fire flapped at his right shoulder."

"He became absorbed beyond mere happiness as he felt himself exercising control over living things. He talked to them, urging them, ordering them. Driven back by the tide, his footprints became bays in which they were trapped and gave him the illusion of mastery."

"He must have had a nightmare. Stumbling about among all those creepers." More grave nodding. They knew about nightmares. "He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?" "But there isn't a beastie!" "He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back again tonight?" "But there isn't a beastie!" There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching. Ralph pushed both hands through his hair and looked at the little boy in mixed amusement and exasperation."

"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."

"He lost himself in a maze of thoughts that were rendered vague by his lack of words to express them. Frowning, he tried again."

"He beamed at Ralph. "That was what you meant, didn't you? That's why you got the conch out of the water." Ralph pushed back his fair hair. "How did your friend blow the conch?" "He kind of spat," said Piggy. "My auntie wouldn't let me blow on account of my asthma. He said you blew from down here." Piggy laid a hand on his jutting abdomen. "You try, Ralph. You'll call the others." Doubtfully, Ralph laid the small end of the shell against his mouth and blew. There came a rushing sound from its mouth but nothing more. Ralph wiped the salt water off his lips and tried again, but the shell remained silent. "He kind of spat." Ralph pursed his lips and squirted air into the shell, which emitted a low, farting noise. This amused both boys so much that Ralph went on squirting for some minutes, between bouts of laughter. "He blew from down here." Ralph grasped the idea and hit the shell with air from his diaphragm. Immediately the thing sounded. A deep, harsh note boomed under the palms, spread through the intricacies of the forest and echoed back from the pink granite of the mountain. Clouds of birds rose from the treetops, and something squealed and ran in the undergrowth."

"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."

"He says he saw the beastie, the snake-thing, and will it come back tonight?" "But there isn't a beastie!" "He says in the morning it turned into them things like ropes in the trees and hung in the branches. He says will it come back again tonight?" "But there isn't a beastie!" There was no laughter at all now and more grave watching. Ralph pushed both hands through his hair and looked at the little boy in mixed amusement and exasperation."

"He tried to convey the compulsion to track down and kill that was swallowing him up."

"He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience."

"He paused and stood up, looking at the shadows under the trees. His voice was lower when he spoke again. "But we'll leave part of the kill for ?" He knelt down again and was busy with his knife. The boys crowded round him. He spoke over his shoulder to Roger. "Sharpen a stick at both ends." Presently he stood up, holding the dripping sow's head in his hands. "Where's that stick?" "Here." "Ram one end in the earth. Oh ? it's rock. Jam it in that crack. There." Jack held the head and jammed the soft throat down on the pointed end of the stick which pierced through into the mouth. He stood back and the head hung there, a little blood dribbling down the stick.""

"Her bows [were] hauled up and held by two ratings. In the stern-sheets another rating held a sub-machine gun."

"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."

"Heaven lies around us in our infancy."

"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 man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy."

"How can you expect to be rescued if you don?t put first things first and act proper?"

"However Simon thought of the beast, there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick."

"I am astonished at the ease with which uninformed persons come to a settled, a passionate opinion when they have no grounds for judgment."

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

"How would I myself live in this proposed society? How long would it be before I went stark staring mad?"

"I am here; and here is nowhere in particular."