"The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts."

"Certainly it hurts."

"Ooh! It damn well 'urts!"

"No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing."

"I killed two people. One was... yesterday? He was just a boy and I led him into quicksand. The other was... well, before Aqaba. I had to execute him with my pistol, and there was something about it that I didn't like."

"That's to be expected."

"No... something else."

"I enjoyed it."

"If we've been telling lies, you've been telling half-lies. A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it."

"My friends, we have been foolish. Auda will not come to Aqaba. Not for money..."

"No."

"...for Feisal..."

"No!"

"...nor to drive away the Turks. He will come... because it is his pleasure."

"Thy mother mated with a scorpion."

"There's nothing further here for a warrior. We drive bargains. Old men's work. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men. Courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace. And the vices of peace are the vices of old men. Mistrust and caution. It must be so."

"It is Auda of the Howitat who speaks."

"It is Ali of the Harith who answers."

"Harith! Ali, does your father still steal?"

"No. Does Auda take me for one of his own bastards?"

"No, there is no resemblance. Alas, you resemble your father."

"Auda flatters me."

"You're easily flattered. I knew your father well."

"Did you know your own?"

"I am Auda abu Tayi! Does Auda serve?"

"NO!"

"I carry twenty-three great wounds, all got in battle. Seventy-five men have I killed with my own hands in battle. I scatter, I burn my enemies' tents. I take away their flocks and herds. The Turks pay me a golden treasure, yet I am poor! Because I am a river to my people!"

"Gasim's time has come, Lawrence. It is written."

"Nothing is written."

"You will not be at Aqaba, English! Go back, blasphemer... but you will not be at Aqaba!"

"I shall be at Aqaba. That, IS written."

"In here."

"With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable."

"Are you badly hurt?"

"I'm not hurt at all. Didn't you know? They can only kill me with a golden bullet."

"Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither. Take it from me, for ordinary men, it's a burning, fiery furnace."

"No, Dryden, it's going to be fun."

"It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun."

"So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel, as you are."

"I can't make out whether you're bloody bad-mannered or just half-witted."

"I have the same problem, sir."

"Yes, it was my privilege to know him and to make him known to the world. He was a poet, a scholar and a mighty warrior."

"He was also the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum & Bailey."

"You will cross Sinai?"

"Moses did!"

"And you will take the children?"

"Moses did!"

"Moses was a prophet and beloved of God!"

"I do not understand this. Your father's name is Chapman..."

"Ali, he didn't marry my mother."

"I see."

"I'm sorry."

"It seems to me that you are free to choose your own name, then."

"Is that a desert country?"

"No: a fat country. Fat people."

"You are not fat?"

"No. I'm different."

"Never saw a man killed with a sword before."

"Why don't you take a picture?"

"Wish I had."

"My lord, I think... I think your book is right. 'The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped' and on this ocean the Bedu go where they please and strike where they please. This is the way the Bedu have always fought. You're famed throughout the world for fighting in this way and this is the way you should fight now!"

"You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise. What do you think?"

"Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells."

"We do not work this thing for Feisal."

"No? For the English, then?"

"For the Arabs."

"The Arabs? The Howitat, Ajili, Rala, Beni Saha; these I know, I have even heard of the Harif, but the Arabs? What tribe is that?"

"Michael George Hartley, this is a nasty, dark little room."

"That's right."

"We are not happy in it."

"It's better than a nasty, dark little trench."

"Then you're an ignoble fellow."

"That's right."

"Well, I'll tell you. It's a little clash of temperament that's going on in there. Inevitably, one of them's half-mad - and the other, wholly unscrupulous."

"I'm looking for a hero."

"Indeed? You do not seem a romantic man."

"Aurens is your man."

"What ails the Englishman?"

"The one he killed is the one he brought out of the Nefud."

"It was written then. Better to have left him there."

"This is a bar for British officers!"

"That's all right. We're not particular."

"You acted without orders, you know."

"Shouldn't officers use their initiative at all times?"

"Not really. It's awfully dangerous."

"When Lawrence finds what he's looking for, he will go home. When you find what you are looking for, you will go home."

"I will not."

"Then you are a fool. Be thankful that when God made you a fool, He gave you a fool's face."

"Undisciplined... unpunctual... untidy. Several languages. Knowledge of music... literature... knowledge of... knowledge of... you're an interesting man there's no doubt about it."

"Big things have small beginnings."

"Truly, for some men nothing is written unless THEY write it."

"Have we done it?"

"No, but we're off the anvil."

"Thank God for that anyway."

"Yes, thank Him."

"I know."

"We've done it."

"God willing."

"When do we reach the wells?"

"God willing, midday."