'Maybe there is a beast... maybe it's only us' — Simon's tentative insight articulates Golding's central thesis: that evil is not imposed from outside but is innate to human nature; the island is Eden, and the boys re-enact the Fall without any serpent but their own nature.

'Which is better — to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?' — Piggy's desperate question crystallises the novel's central opposition; Golding's answer is bleak: savagery wins not because it is stronger but because civilisation requires constant effort while savagery is the default.

The political allegory reflects the twentieth century's struggle between democracy and fascism — Jack offers the boys simple, visceral satisfactions (hunting, feasting, belonging) that democracy's rational demands (fire-keeping, shelter-building) cannot match, warning that democracy is inherently vulnerable to demagogues.

'Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill!' — the Lord of the Flies tells Simon the truth the others cannot face; the externalisation of evil is Golding's critique of humanity's refusal to accept moral responsibility for its own darkness.

'Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart' — the novel's final line confirms that the loss of innocence is permanent and irreversible; the knowledge Ralph gains on the island cannot be unlearned, and childhood's comforting illusions are shattered forever.

Golding shows how group identity dissolves individual moral responsibility — even Ralph and Piggy participate in Simon's killing; the chanting, dancing, and collective frenzy demonstrate that moral conscience is an individual faculty that cannot survive the pressure of the crowd.

'Roger's arm was conditioned by a civilisation that knew nothing of him and was in ruins' — power without accountability produces cruelty; Golding demonstrates that the restraints on violence are entirely external (social taboo, law, punishment), and once removed, the appetite for dominance is limitless.

The novel dramatises the Freudian model of the psyche — the boys' conflict can be read as an externalisation of the internal struggle between instinct, reason, and morality; the id's triumph over the ego and superego represents the collapse of the civilised mind.

The dead parachutist literally brings the adult war to the island — Golding, who served in the Royal Navy and witnessed D-Day, wrote the novel as a response to the question of how civilised nations could commit atrocities; the answer is that savagery is not a failure of civilisation but its shadow.

The novel is Golding's explicit rejection of Rousseau — removing society does not reveal noble savages but predatory ones; the boys do not return to a state of natural virtue but descend into tyranny, murder, and tribal warfare, arguing that civilisation is humanity's greatest and most precarious achievement.

'Life is scientific, that's what it is' — Piggy's rationalism is correct but powerless; Golding shows that reason alone cannot overcome irrational fear and desire, and that the Enlightenment faith in human rationality is dangerously naive about the strength of the irrational.