the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.

Then you have people coming up like Malcolm Bradbury, a relatively young writer who deals with the academic scene and deals with it, I think, brilliantly.

I really feel the novel has certain conveniences about it and has something so fundamental about it you could almost say that as long as there is paper, there is going to be the novel.

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.

For a small island, the place is remarkably diverse. Writers tend to see things from their own points of view, looking in one direction very much.

We're not savages. We're English.

One tries to tell a truth, and one hopes that the truth has a general application rather than just a specific one.