“And I’ve been wearing specs since I was three.”

We’re not savages. We’re English.

Every novel is a biography. Well, then, this is a novel [The Paper Men] which is a biography that is pretending to be an autobiography. That’s what you could say about it.

How can you expect to be rescued if you don’t put first things first and act proper?

At the moment of vision, the eyes see nothing.

I am here; and here is nowhere in particular.

The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers….Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island.

What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others.

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.

Heaven lies around us in our infancy.

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

You’ll get back to where you came from.

We did everything adults would do. What went wrong?

The Navy’s a very gentlemanly business. You fire at the horizon to sink a ship and then you pull people out of the water and say, ‘Frightfully sorry, old chap.’

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.

Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother.

The writer probably knows what he meant when he wrote a book, but he should immediately forget what he meant when he’s written it.

No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger.

So, it’s a special event, right? Well, if you want to go see a movie that I’m in, it still may be a special event for you, but, you don’t feel like you don’t know where I’ve been.

I’ve never been one to look up the ladder. I’ve always looked down the ladder. As long as there’s one guy down there, I’m fine.

My lawyer has been a good friend of mine for a long time. He and I continuously have conversations.

When you have good friends you’ve been around, every time they talk, you don’t give them your full attention.

I’ve never been a jealous person, and I’ve never felt built up by someone else’s failure – that’s a cheap thrill.

There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.

I tell everyone in the world that I have always been the best father I could be and that I was the worst husband. Wooo!