Mr. Dryden Quotes in Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Mr. Dryden: 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.

Mr. Dryden: 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.

T.E. Lawrence: No, Dryden, it's going to be fun.

Mr. Dryden: It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun.

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.

General Murray: [on the Arab Revolt] It's a storm in a tea cup, Mr. Dryden - a sideshow. If you want my own opinion, this whole theater of operations is a sideshow! The real war's not being fought against the Turks, but the Germans. And not here, but on the Western front in the trenches! Your Bedouin Army - or whatever it calls itself - would be a sideshow OF a sideshow!

Mr. Dryden: Big things have small beginnings, sir.

General Murray: Does the Arab Bureau want a "big thing" in Arabia? If we get them to rise against the Turks, does the Bureau think they'll sit down quietly under us when this war's over?

Mr. Dryden: The Arab Bureau thinks the job of the moment, sir, is to win the war.

General Murray: Don't tell me my duty, Mr. Dryden!

Mr. Dryden: Well. It seems we're to have a British waterworks with an Arab flag on it. Do you think it was worth it?

General Allenby: Not my business. Thank God I'm a soldier.

Mr. Dryden: Yes, sir. So you keep saying.

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.

General Allenby: What about your Arab friends? What about them?

T.E. Lawrence: I have no Arab friends. I don't want Arab friends !

General Allenby: What in Hell do you want, Lawrence?

T.E. Lawrence: I told you! I just want my ration of common humanity.

Mr. Dryden: Lawrence!

[Lawrence turns away from Allenby to face Dryden]

Mr. Dryden: Nothing. Sorry I interrupted, Sir.

General Allenby: [subdued] Quite all right. Thank you, Mr Dryden. Look, why don't we, er... There's blood on your back. Do you want a Doctor ?

T.E. Lawrence: Where are they now?

Mr. Dryden: Anywhere within 300 miles of Medina. They're Hashemite Bedouins. They can cross 60 miles of desert in a day.

T.E. Lawrence: Oh,thanks Dryden. This is going to be fun.

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

T.E. Lawrence: No,Dryden. It's going to be fun.

Mr. Dryden: It is recognised that you have a funny sense of fun.

General Allenby: I've got orders to obey, thank God. Not like that poor devil. He's riding the whirlwind.

Mr. Dryden: Let's hope we're not.

Jackson Bentley: Is Major Lawrence in there? Is he in trouble?

Mr. Dryden: I would suspect so. We all have troubles. Life is a vale of troubles.

General Murray: I may as well tell you, it's my considered opinion and that of my staff that any time spent on the Bedouin will be time wasted.They're a nation of sheep-stealers.

Mr. Dryden: They did attack Medina.

General Murray: And the Turks made mincemeat of them.

Mr. Dryden: We don't know that.

General Murray: We know that they didn't take it. A storm in a teacup, a sideshow. If you want my own opinion, this whole theatre of operations is a sideshow. The real war's being fought against Germans, not Turks. And not here, but on the Western front in the trenches. Your Bedouin Army, or whatever it calls itself would be a sideshow of a sideshow.

Mr. Dryden: Big things have small beginnings, sir.

General Murray: Does the Arab Bureau want a "big thing" in Arabia? If we get them to rise against the Turks, does the Bureau think they'll sit down quietly under us when this war's over?

Mr. Dryden: The Arab Bureau thinks the job of the moment, sir, is to win the war.

General Murray: Don't tell me my duty, Mr. Dryden!