Mine is: when General Allenby thinks about trying on Lawrence's headgear:
Allenby (to Colonel Brighton):
How wound I look wearing this?
Brighton: Damn ridiculous, Sir.
Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy!
Prince Feisal: No Arab loves the desert. We love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing.
-----
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.
🔺
Prince Feisal: Have you ever been to Damascus, Mr. Lawrence?
shareI like Feisal quoting back to Lawrence his 'small people; silly people' statement...in that moment you knew Prince Feisal was nobody's fool & smart as a fox.
Why can't you wretched prey creatures understand that the Universe doesn't owe you anything!?
Oh yes. The look of surprise on Lawrence's face is priceless.
Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy!
Prince Feisal: "With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable."
In other words, while the manners you are raised with will always be a part of you, your passions may change as time goes by. And after his short time in the custody of the Turks, Lawerence's passion about mercy definitely changes for the worse.
Absolutely! That scene where they're pursuing that column of Turkish soldiers while they're on the way to Damascus. Peter O'Toole did a great job with his face and eyes. You could literally see Lawrence going insane in a matter of minutes!
Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy
Lots of beautifully written dialogue.
NUMBER ONE: "...and I... I long for the vanished gardens of Corduba. .." Says an enormous amount about the person and the whole Arab inner struggle.
HONORABLE MENTION: "Who ARE you?" (shouted from across the Suez Canal)
and,
"Being an 'Arab' will be thornier than you think." An overlooked bit of wisdom, ignored by the West to this day.
"...and I... I long for the vanished gardens of Corduba. .."
I love that line too. I don't know if I could pick a single favorite line, but that's definitely up there.
""Being an 'Arab' will be thornier than you think." An overlooked bit of wisdom, ignored by the West to this day."
I don't know about "ignored". I'd say the West has deliberately made it more complicated than it had to be, drawing all those colonial borders (Churchill infamously bragged that he created the country of Jordan with a stroke of his pen on a Sunday afternoon), handing other people's countries around to their puppets like a bag of chips (the worst case being the Balfour Declaration and backing the Zionist movement, the repercussions of which will continue to ripple for generations), consistently interfering with the internal politics of the Arab world. They deliberately wanted to keep the Arabs from uniting, to keep them divided and weak, dependent and controllable. When governments have proved uncontrollable, the West has resorted to coups and invasions, and proxy wars like what's going on now in Syria, a Contra war to overthrow an indigenous Arab government. Colonialism and neo-colonialism are the main reasons why the Arab situation is so bad today. The West has done a tremendous amount of harm there over the last 100 years. And it wasn't out of innocent naivete, but conscious malice. The Arab peoples should have been left alone to sort their own affairs out. If they had, things would never have gotten to where they are today.
When Lawrence and Brighton meet Feisal right after his settlement has been strafed:
Brighton: ...This is a bloody mess, sir, we'll have to move south.
Feisal:....We'll have to take some thought for the wounded.
Brighton: Well, we can take care of them at Yenbo, sir.
Feisal: If they can GET to Yenbo.
Brighton: Well, they can hardly come with us, sir.
Feisal: No, they must TRY to reach Yenbo.
My favorite line comes near the beginning of the film when the corporal askes Lawrence what the secret for holding a burning match. "The secret is not minding that it hurts."
share"The best of them won't come for money; they'll come for me."
"Nothing is written."
"I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state from a little city."
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