"[to Almásy] What I really object to, Uncle, is your finishing all my condensed milk - and the message everywhere in your book - however slowly I read it - that the best destiny for India is to be ruled by the British."

"[reading from Kipling to Almásy] It's still there, the cannon, outside the museum. It was made of metal cups and bowls taken from every household in the city as tax, then melted down. Then later they fired the cannon at my people - comma - The natives - full stop."

"[to Hana after playing the piano] Look. See? Move that - and no more Bach."

"[to Almásy] There was a result to what you did!"

"[to Hana] Ask him. Ask your saint who he is. Ask him who he's killed."

"In Italy, there's always chickens, but no eggs. In Africa there's eggs, but never chickens. Who separated them?"

"[to Almásy] So. I come across the hospital convoy, I'm looking for this stuff. This nurse, Mary, tells me about you and Hana, hiding in some monastery, in what you call it - retreat - how you'd come in from the desert and you were burned and you didn't remember your name, but you knew the words to every song that ever was and you had one possession - a copy of Herodotus and it was filled with letters and cuttings, and then I know it was you...I'd seen you writing in that book. At the embassy in Cairo, when I had thumbs, and you had a face. And a name."

"[written in journal] My darling, I'm waiting for you. How long is a day in the dark? Or a week? The fire is gone now, and I'm horribly cold. I really ought to drag myself outside but then there'd be the sun...I'm afraid I waste the light on the paintings and on writing these words. We die. We die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered and swum up like rivers, fears we've hidden in, like this wretched cave. I want all this marked on my body. We're the real countries. Not the boundaries drawn on maps, the names of powerful men. I know you will come carry me out into the palace of winds. That's all I've wanted, to walk in such a place with you, with friends. An earth without maps. The lamp's gone out, and I'm writing in the darkness."

"[to Almásy] Why did you hate me? Don't you know you drove everybody mad?"

"[to Almásy] Do you think you are the only one who feels anything? Is that what you think?"

"[to Almásy] I can't do this anymore."

"[to Almásy] You speak so many bloody languages, and you never want to talk."

"[to Almásy] Am I 'K' in your book? I think I must be."

"[reading from the notes she found in Almásy's book] The neck of K can never be something, not in my mind. And K's clothes always at ease on her. Does he notice? What is the significance of Betrayal? Does K bother with a moral Labyrinth - K's debate - does she debate?"

"[to Almásy] This a different world is what I tell myself; a different life. And here, I'm a different wife."

"[to Almásy] A woman should never learn to sew, and if she can she shouldn't admit to it."

"[to Almásy] Yes is a comfort. Absolutely is not."

"[to Almásy] Am I a terrible coward to ask how much water we have?"

"[to Almásy] This is not very good is it?"

"I'm not one of the walking wounded. It's only one night. Besides, if I remain it's the most effective method of persuading my husband to abandon whatever he's doing and come and rescue us."

"[to Almásy] And that would be unconscionable, I suppose, to feel any obligation? Yes. Of course it would."

"[to Almásy] I've been thinking - how does someone like you decide to come to the desert?"

"[reading Almásy's note on the Christmas firecracker] Dec. 22nd [1938] - Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace. New lovers are nervous and tender, but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire. For the heart is an organ of fire - I love that. I believe that."

"There's a war. Where you come from becomes important."

"[to Almásy] It's raining."

"I must be a curse. Anybody who loves me, anybody who gets close to me...or I must be cursed. Which is it?"

"[last words; to Hana] Read to me will you? Read me to sleep."

"[singing the tune of "It's Only a Paper Moon" (by Harold Arlen, Billy Rose, and E.Y. Harburg)] It wouldn't be make believe if you believed in me."

"[to Caravaggio] I have come to love that little tap of the fingernail against the syringe. Tap...Tap...Tap."

"[to Kip] Hana was just telling me that you were indifferent...to her cooking."

"[to Hana] Condensed milk - one of the truly great inventions."