Subsisting on a handful of dates and occasional sip of camel's piss

The sort of man who will happily walk barefoot for months across a waterless desert, subsisting on a handful of dates and occasional sip of camel's piss, but when back of civilisation, cannot endure the most trivial discomfort. He becomes frantic even if his egg isn't boiled right for breakfast.

John Verney, cited in A. Maitland, Wilfred Thesiger (2007), 139

I thought it sounded a deadly, deadly dull country to live in

In his seventies he said: 'I imagined that England was like India. I was very disappointed when my father told me that, in England, there were none of the animals or birds I knew. No hyenas, no oryx, no kites. I thought it sounded a deadly, deadly dull country to live in.'

A. Maitland, Wilfred Thesiger (2007), 51

Richelieu omitted to mention those little items of the five-million-a-year income

In describing himself as a Promethean saviour, a voluntary scapegoat for the suffering of the people, Richelieu omitted to mention those little items of the five-million-a-year income, the dukedom, the absolute power, the precedence over princes of the blood, the fawnings and flatteries of all who approached him.

A. Huxley, Grey Eminence (1941), 147

These pleasant, friendly people ... they were all heretics, and therefore irrevocably doomed

He enjoyed himself in England, and he liked the English. And precisely because he like them, his happy exhilaration at being among them evaporated. These pleasant, friendly people, who spoke Latin with such a deliciously comic accent - they were all heretics, and therefore irrevocably doomed.

A. Huxley, Grey Eminence (1941), 33

Now her descendant did not know what a napkin ring was

It has come to this. Time was, that life could not proceed appropriately for a family such as my grandmother's without ownership of sauce ladles, knife rests and ivory-handled crumb scoops. Now her descendant did not know what a napkin ring was.

P. Lively, A House unlocked (2001), 197

One of the worst plights of the twentieth century has been to be Russian - at any point

One of the worst plights of the twentieth century has been to be Russian - at any point. They fought in the Great War with the other Allies. Then came the Revolution. Then the Civil War. Then the Red Terror. Then the Second World War. And beyond all this there was Stalin: Siberia lay in wait, and the gulags. Those of us who have spent most of our life in a politically stable country in peacetime can only look back in horror. And in ignorance. This is a dimension of distress that is barely conceivable.

P. Lively, A House unlocked (2001), 87

Two powerful forces of enlightenment - television and general mobility

Peering back into the 1940s, it is difficult to realize how deeply polarized society was then - even for one who was around at the time and exposed to its stringent rules and assumptions. There is a fair amount of mutual ignorance today between city and country, but it is tempered by two powerful forces of enlightenment - television and general mobility. The sight, sound and function of the countryside are familiar to all, if only through the windows of a car or as the backdrop to some news item or rural drama series.

P. Lively, A House unlocked (2001), 36