Mm Kaye Quotes

Common sense will nearly always stand you in better stead than a slavish adherence to the conventions.

...for though she was ordinary, she possessed health, wit, courage, charm, and cheerfulness. But because she was not beautiful, no one ever seemed to notice these other qualities, which is so often the way of the world.

It is not an easy thing to be a woman and love with the whole heart: which men do not understand -- having many loves, and delighting in danger and war.

Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history’s illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer: let him step to the music that he hears.

Loving someone isn't about what you can live with, accept or tolerate. For me, it's about the one person you can't live without. Too know that part of your life will never be the same without that one person being apart of it.

Lavender's blue, Rosemary's green, When you are king, I shall be queen

I cannot see anything admirable in stupidity, injustice and sheer incompetence in high places, and there is too much of all three in the present administration.

for the public, it seemed, preferred to believe that which disturbed it least and to ignore troublesome information. Which is a failing common to all nations.

India and its peoples; not the British India of cantonments and Clubs, or the artificial world of hill stations and horse shows, but that other India: that mixture of glamour and tawdriness, viciousness and nobility. A land full of gods and gold and famine. Ugly as a rotting corpse and beautiful beyond belief …

Nor have I become so blind that I cannot see what is written on your face, or so deaf that I cannot hear what is in your voice; and I am not yet so old that I cannot remember my own youth

Did you ever read Aurora Leigh? – “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes.

But surely Uncle Akbar could not be dead as they were dead? There must be something indestructible — something that remained of men who had walked and talked with one and told one stories, men whom one had loved and looked up to. But where had it gone? It was all very puzzling, and he did not understand.

There is no particular merit in fighting for your own skin when you know that it is fight or die, but there is considerable merit in being prepared to die when you know you can escape quite easily. Put at its lowest, there is a certain stubborn foolhardy heroism in that.

What could be more entrancing than a carefree nomadic existence camping, moving, exploring strange places and the ruins of forgotten empires, sleeping under canvas or the open sky, and giving no thought to the conventions and restriction of the modern world?

Have you really become so much an Angrezi that you believe your people have only to say “It is forbidden”, for such old customs as this to cease immediately? Bah!

I do not doubt that you would have done all that was in your power to make her happy. But it is not in your power to build a new world; or to turn back time

people everywhere are suspicious of strangers and hostile towards anyone different from themselves

Ash said slowly: ‘I don’t believe that anyone can have no regrets … Perhaps there are times when even God regrets that He created such a thing as man. But one can put them away and not dwell upon them; and I’ll have you, Larla … that alone is enough happiness for any man.’ He

Perhaps I myself am a pompous and conceited old fool. And perhaps if these fools I complain of were French or Dutch or German I would not mind so much, because then I could say 'What else can you expect?' and feel superior. It is because they are men of my own race that I would have them all good.

they were a fanatically independent people, much addicted to intrigue, treachery and murder, and that among their other national traits was an intolerance of rulers (or, if it came to that, of any form of authority whatsoever, other than their own desires).

because Afghanistan is no country to fight a war in – and an impossible one to hold if you win.

People everywhere preferred to make their own mistakes, and resented strangers (even efficient and well-meaning ones) interfering with their affairs

One way or another, all our houses are glass

she did not believe that you could stop loving someone because they hurt or disappointed you—however much you might wish to do so

One thing I learned during our last few days in Delhi was that Time, which can so often move as slowly as a slug crossing a dusty road, can also move with the swiftness of cloud shadows on a windy day.

It was an age of lavishness. Of enormous meals, enormous families, enormous spreading skirts and an enormous, spreading Empire. An age of gross living, grinding poverty, inconceivable prudery, insufferable complacency and incomparable enterprise.

In the absence of any concrete evidence. I plump for Leonard Stock as the murderer. First, because he's the most unlikely person, and as anyone who has ever read a murder story knows, it's always the most unlikely person who turns out to have done the deed--and fifty thousand authors can't be wrong.

Because men are sentimental over women they will throw away military advantages, and hesitate and weigh the chances of failure when attack is their best or only hope, and lose their opportunity because they "have to think of the women and children". Men who would otherwise not dream of surrendering will make terms with an enemy in return for the safety of a handful of women. If a man is killed, it is an accident of war; but if a woman or a child is killed it is a barbarous murder and a hundred lives - or a thousand - are sacrificed to avenge it. It is only a man like John Nicholson who has the courage to write, and mean it, that the safety of "women and children in some crises is such a very minor consideration that it ceases to be a consideration at all". If only more men thought like that you could all stay in Lunjore and be damned to you!

And fortunately for me, neither of my parents would have known what you were talking about if you mentioned that modern and grossly overworked epithet 'racist'. To Tacklow, as with the early Greeks and Romans, and in their day the Venetians, all men were 'people' irrespective of race or color: there were good people and bad ones, nice or nasty ones, clever or stupid ones, interesting or boring ones - plus all the degrees that range between those poles. But all the same. Just 'people'. His fellow men.

Okay. Oh-kay. Re-cap. He just had a man come in his mouth. He liked it. He may be embarking on anal sex, soon, if he was reading the subtext right. Options: stay or leave. Pros of staying: first experience with anal sex. Cons of staying: first experience with anal sex. No, no. That isn't right. Pros of staying: first experience with anal sex. Cons of staying: not being able to face Pete the next day. Maybe ever. The thing about sex, though, as Ryan is discovering, is that it's a goddamn persuasive motivator. It fucks with people's minds.

I, however, had not been too late. It has been my great good fortune to see India when that once fabulously beautiful land was as lovely, and to a great extent as peaceful and unspoiled, as Eden before the Fall. To live for two years in Peking in an old Chinese house, once the property of a Manch Prince, at a time when the citizens of that country still wore their national costumes instead of dressing up - or down! - in dull Russian-style "uniforms. To have visited Japan before war, the Bomb and the American occupation altered it beyond recognition, when the sight of a Japanese woman in European dress was unusual enough to make you turn and stare...

I can still remember the shock that a small girl, brought up to believe that lying was a major sin, experienced on hearing such a loved and admired grown-up calmly admitting to telling lies as though it did not matter at all! It stood all my ideas of morality on their heads and left me totally bewildered. But it taught me an early and valuable lesson: that people of different nationalities do not necessarily hold similar views or think in the same way -just as they do not worship the same God or conform to the same laws. If the Khan Sahib felt it was all right for his people to tell lies, then it must be right -for them. But that didn't mean it was all right for me, for I was an Angrezi (English) and Angrezis obviously thought differently.

At any rate,’ he continued, ‘we hoped that once the war was over the Oracle might start working again. When it did not … Rachel became concerned.’ ‘Who’s Rachel?’ Meg asked. ‘Rachel Dare,’ I said. ‘The Oracle.’ ‘Thought the Oracle was a place.’ ‘It is.’ ‘Then Rachel is a place, and she stopped working?’ Had I still been a god, I would have turned her into a blue-belly lizard and released her into the wilderness never to be seen again. The thought soothed me. ‘The original Delphi was a place in Greece,’ I told her. ‘A cavern filled with volcanic fumes, where people would come to receive guidance from my priestess, the Pythia.’ ‘Pythia.’ Meg giggled. ‘That’s a funny word.’ ‘Yes. Ha-ha. So the Oracle is both a place and a person. When the Greek gods relocated to America back in … what was it, Chiron, 1860?’ Chiron see-sawed his hand. ‘More or less.’ ‘I brought the Oracle here to continue speaking prophecies on my behalf. The power has passed down from priestess to priestess over the years. Rachel Dare is the present Oracle.’ From the cookie platter, Meg plucked the only Oreo, which I had been hoping to have myself. ‘Mm-kay. Is it too late to watch that movie?’ ‘Yes,’ I snapped. ‘Now, the way I gained possession of the Oracle of Delphi in the first place was by killing this monster called Python who lived in the depths of the cavern.’ ‘A python like the snake,’ Meg said. ‘Yes and no. The snake species is named after Python the monster, who is also rather snaky, but who is much bigger and scarier and devours small girls who talk too much. At any rate, last August, while I was … indisposed, my ancient foe Python was released from Tartarus. He reclaimed the cave of Delphi. That’s why the Oracle stopped working.’ ‘But, if the Oracle is in America now, why does it matter if some snake monster takes over its old cave?’ That was about the longest sentence I had yet heard her speak. She’d probably done it just to spite me. ‘It’s too much to explain,’ I said. ‘You’ll just have to –’ ‘Meg.’ Chiron gave her one of his heroically tolerant smiles. ‘The original site of the Oracle is like the deepest taproot of a tree. The branches and leaves of prophecy may extend across the world, and Rachel Dare may be our loftiest branch, but if the taproot is strangled the whole tree is endangered. With Python back in residence at his old lair, the spirit of the Oracle has been completely blocked.

Oh don't be pompous and gloomy,darling," chided Amalfi. "There are thousands of places just as lovely as this. And as peaceful." "That's where you are wrong," said Tyson,leaning his elbows on the warm stone. "I've seen a lot of the world, A hell of a lot of it!But there's something special about this island Something that I haven't met anywhere else Do you know what is the most familiar sound in Zanzibar?-laughter! Walk through the streets of the little city almost any time of day or night, and you'll hear it. People laughing. There is a gaiety and good humour about them that is strangely warming to even such a corrugated, corroded and eroded heart as mine and this is the only place that I have hit upon where black and white and every shade in between 'em appear to able to live in complete friendliness and harmony, with no colour bar. It's living proof and a practical demonstration that it can be done.

He means, Coppy, that even though he had no intention of getting engaged or married, or otherwise entangled, he has discovered--probably with disgust--that the light of Reason has been put out and that he has been forced, against every prompting of intelligence, common sense and will-power, to chuck himself and his future at your feet, because he knows that unless you can be persuaded to pick them up, neither the one or the other will ever be of any value to him again.

I was going to say that it's a great pity that so many people fail to realize that the war that has just ended is only a taste of what is to come. That this "Peace" we are enjoying is only the lemon, the very sour lemon, that both teams suck at half-time. The big struggle is to come, and it is going to be far more bitter; because it will be between ideologies and not nation.

will,

So that she lived always in hope, and when that hope was realized, was happy beyond expression – far more so than those who take happiness for granted because they feel their hold on it to be secure, and do not visualize it ending.

Sogar das Wort, mit dem sie den Balkon bezeichneten, fiel ihm wieder ein: Zamurrad (Smaragd) - so hieß der verwöhnte Pfau, der mit seinem Harem in Laljis Garten wohnte.

Wars and riots and mutinies, famine, disaster and the crash of dynasties - the process of birth stopped for none of these things.

We cannot prevail,' said Walayat Shah. 'The Jehad is dead. Those who slew the women and the babes have slain it also. To slay in battle or in hot blood, that is well. And to kill men, if they be unbelievers, is to achieve Paradise. But to slaughter captive women who have suffered the harshness of war and sorrow, and been robbed thereby of all strength and will, is a deed to blacken the sun! I will fight no more against the feringhis, since God can no longer be upon our side.

Miranda was suddenly reminded of the roses in the garden at Mallow: one day so beautiful in their velvety perfection, and the next, overblown and fading. Stella was like the roses, she thought; and like them, she would fade quickly. Her looks were not of the kind that will outlast youth, and soon there would be nothing left of that bright prettiness, and little to show that it had ever existed.

I saw on the crest a lone pavilion; a little chatri, it's slender pillars and graceful dome dark against the yellow dawn: the last lonely remnant of some forgotten city. And to me at that moment the sight of the little ruined chatri seemed the personification of India and History and Romance. It still does; for I have never forgotten it. But on that particular morning it was also a reminder of all that I was leaving behind; and watching it grow smaller and smaller as the train raced on, I knew that even if I was fortunate enough to come back again one day, nothing was ever going to be the same. Because I could only come back as a grown-up.

expression of sullen ill-temper and said

the enmity of closed minds towards all that is strange or new.

The cool, pearly sheen of dawn had warmed in the East to a blaze of vivid rose that deepened along the horizon's edge to a bar of living, glowing scarlet, and bathed the still sea and the dreaming islands in an uncanny, sunset radiance.

Like dark hills of water that mounted higher and higher as they neared the shore, their crests and flanks streaked with livid bars of foam, to curl over at last and crash down into acres of boiling surf.

The retreating tide had transformed the wet sands into a curving silver mirror that reflected the colours that flooded the pale sea and pearly sky in waves of wonder. The far islands had lost their look of shimmering transparency and become silhouettes of violet velvet against the opal sea, and a dimness had crept over the flaming green of the jungle-clad hills; softening and blurring it wiht a blue, grape-like bloom.

Patriotism be damned. That whole concept is merely a combination of self-interest and sentimentality

A man is not responsible for his ancestors, so why should he accept credit or shoulder blame for anything they did? Or, for that matter, be judged in advance by the fact that he happens to have been born on one side or another of some imaginary line? It’s an archaic and dangerous idea and it’s quite time it became outmoded, since it leads to a deal of trouble. People are people; black, white, yellow or brown. You either like someone or you don’t, and the bit of earth they were born on shouldn’t have anything to do with it or be allowed to influence your judgement in any way.

It is not our practice to meddle in the conduct or politics of other countries, or to become involved in their domestic disputes. We should strive to remain neutral; if not in thought then at least in deed. And to avoid any appearance of taking sides, because once we start doing that we shall find ourselves committed all over the globe. Committed, as the British are, to interference and responsibility, oppression and suppression—and war. The founders of our country and a great many of its present citizens were and are men who fled from interference and interminable wars. They wanted peace and freedom, and by God, they got it. But the surest way to lose it is by permitting ourselves to get mixed up in the unsavoury squabbles of foreign nations.

The sun hasn’t reached its zenith yet, and it won’t sink until every Western nation in turn has done its best to foist its own particular Message onto the older civilizations of the East. And by that time, the lesson will have been learned too well and there will be nowhere left in all the world where a man can escape from Progress and do what he damn’ well pleases—or find room to breathe in!

people do things, or don’t do them, because there is something in them that pushes them that way and that they are not always strong enough to fight against…something that perhaps they cannot help; heredity, or the wrong sort of teaching. Or strong appetites that need to be satisfied, and which I—I never really understood anything about…before

It would not be long before there were twice as many people in the world as there had been when he, Emory Frost, had been born in that quiet old manor house in Kent. And after that three times as many; and then four—and five… There would be more Restrictions, more Discipline, more Laws. And more Tyranny!…all the things he had rebelled against. There would be no escaping them, and he wondered if the world of the next century would be the better for them or the worse, and why he should never have realized before that what he had taken to be misfortune had, in reality, been luck in disguise. Incredible luck!

You’re the one you’ve got to live wit