Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

General Murray: I can't make out whether you're bloody bad-mannered or just half-witted.
T.E. Lawrence: I have the same problem, sir.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Sherif Ali: What is your name?
T.E. Lawrence: My name is for my friends. None of my friends is a murderer!

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Auda abu Tayi: [as Lawrence sets out across the desert with Daoud and Faraj] You will cross Sinai?
T.E. Lawrence: Moses did!
Auda abu Tayi: And you will take the children?
T.E. Lawrence: Moses did!
Auda abu Tayi: Moses was a prophet and beloved of God!

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Tafas: [talking of Britain] Is that a desert country?
T.E. Lawrence: No: a fat country. Fat people.
Tafas: You are not fat?
T.E. Lawrence: No. I'm different.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Colonel Brighton: Look, sir, we can't just do nothing.
General Allenby: Why not? It's usually best.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

T.E. Lawrence: 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!

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Sherif Ali: I do not understand this. Your father's name is Chapman...
T.E. Lawrence: Ali, he didn't marry my mother.
Sherif Ali: I see.
T.E. Lawrence: I'm sorry.
Sherif Ali: It seems to me that you are free to choose your own name, then.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Prince Feisal: You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise. What do you think?
Mr. Dryden: Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Jackson Bentley: Never saw a man killed with a sword before.
T.E. Lawrence: [contemptuously] Why don't you take a picture?
Jackson Bentley: Wish I had.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

T.E. Lawrence: It's my manner, sir.
General Murray: Your manner?
T.E. Lawrence: Yes. It looks insubordinate, but it isn't really.
General Murray: Shut up... and get out!

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

T.E. Lawrence: Michael George Hartley, this is a nasty, dark little room.
Hartley: That's right.
T.E. Lawrence: We are not happy in it.
Hartley: It's better than a nasty, dark little trench.
T.E. Lawrence: Then you're an ignoble fellow.
Hartley: That's right.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Prince Feisal: But you know, Lieutenant, in the Arab city of Cordoba were two miles of public lighting in the streets when London was a village?
T.E. Lawrence: Yes, you were great.
Prince Feisal: Nine centuries ago.
T.E. Lawrence: Time to be great again, my lord.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Mr. Dryden: [to Bentley, on a meeting between Lawrence and Allenby] 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.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

T.E. Lawrence: We do not work this thing for Feisal.
Auda abu Tayi: No? For the English, then?
T.E. Lawrence: For the Arabs.
Auda abu Tayi: 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?

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

General Allenby: I thought I was a hard man, sir.
Prince Feisal: You are merely a general. I must be a king.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

T.E. Lawrence: The Law says the man must die... If he dies, would that content the Howitat?
Auda abu Tayi: Yes.
T.E. Lawrence: Sherif Ali. If none of lord Auda's men harms any of yours, will that content the Harith?
Sherif Ali: Yes.
T.E. Lawrence: Then I will execute the Law. I have no

tribe and no one is offended.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

General Allenby: You acted without orders, you know.
T.E. Lawrence: Shouldn't officers use their initiative at all times?
General Allenby: Not really. It's awfully dangerous.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

General Allenby: [leafing through Lawrence's dossier] Undisciplined... unpunctual... untidy. Knowledge of music... knowledge of literature... knowledge of... knowledge of... you're an interesting man there's no doubt about it.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Jackson Bentley: [on his interest in Lawrence and the Arab Revolt] I'm looking for a hero.
Prince Feisal: Indeed, you do not seem a romantic man.
Jackson Bentley: Oh, no! But certain influential men back home believe the time has come for America to lend her weight to the patriotic struggle against Germany... and Turkey. Now, I've

been sent to find material that makes this war seem more...
Prince Feisal: Enjoyable?
Jackson Bentley: Oh, hardly THAT, sir. But to show it in its more... adventurous aspects.
Prince Feisal: You are looking for a figure that will draw your country towards war?
Jackson Bentley: All right, yes.

Prince Feisal: Lawrence is your man.

Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia

Auda abu Tayi: What ails the Englishman?
Sherif Ali: The one he killed is the one he brought out of the Nefud.
Auda abu Tayi: It was written then. Better to have left him there.