The desert is an ocean in which no oar is dipped.

Misery, anger, indignation, discomfort-those conditions produce literature. Contentment-never. So there you are.

The literature of disease is more interesting to me than all the healthy books.

He was old and wise, which meant tired and disappointed.

We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass – a beautiful swift seeming of spring; which, after a day’s heat, fell dusty.

An opinion can be argued with; a conviction is best shot. The logical end of a war of creeds is the final destruction of one, and Salammbo is the classical text-book instance.

Half a calamity is better than a whole one.