|
48e9a2d
|
Common sense will nearly always stand you in better stead than a slavish adherence to the conventions.
|
|
wisdom
m-m-kaye
common-sense
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
9b6976a
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
bf5fb5c
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
42161d2
|
Lavender's blue, Rosemary's green, When you are king, I shall be queen
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
445007f
|
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 ...
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
da8cef0
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
4b36da0
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
2e5b2b7
|
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
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
0606ee9
|
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 ..
|
|
women-and-children
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
8dcca38
|
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.
|
|
east-india-company
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
18b9b1e
|
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.
|
|
war
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
ce75e72
|
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.
|
|
incomprehensible
death-of-a-loved-one
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
42019c7
|
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?
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
ed0074e
|
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
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
4bf8c6c
|
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."
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
ee1295c
|
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!"
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
5e7cb21
|
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
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
52bc8ec
|
people everywhere are suspicious of strangers and hostile towards anyone different from themselves
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
0c4a46a
|
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).
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
c7ef9e5
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
0a8784d
|
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.
|
|
suspects
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
0c0e078
|
People everywhere preferred to make their own mistakes, and resented strangers (even efficient and well-meaning ones) interfering with their affairs
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
63d6b30
|
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 ..
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
05a1b99
|
because Afghanistan is no country to fight a war in - and an impossible one to hold if you win.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
d15c729
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
3820dc2
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
dc4e648
|
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.
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
dd2ee7d
|
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 ..
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
63a6a62
|
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 t..
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
f7d1923
|
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 "..
|
|
memoir-writing
reminiscing
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
c418d00
|
Patriotism be damned. That whole concept is merely a combination of self-interest and sentimentality
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
473844e
|
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 ..
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
105b68f
|
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 ..
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
a2f35d5
|
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. T..
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
b2a9a97
|
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!
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
c8b7906
|
One way or another, all our houses are glass
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
b940651
|
she did not believe that you could stop loving someone because they hurt or disappointed you--however much you might wish to do so
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
5e2b932
|
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
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
1af12fe
|
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 th..
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |
|
63db35a
|
You're the one you've got to live wit
|
|
|
M.M. Kaye |