Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Claude Rains: Mr. Dryden

Photos 

Quotes 

• Mr. Dryden : If we've been telling lies, you've been telling half-lies. A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.

• Mr. Dryden : Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither. Take it from me, for ordinary men, it's a burning, fiery furnace.

  T.E. Lawrence : No, Dryden, it's going to be fun.

  Mr. Dryden : It is recognized that you have a funny sense of fun.

• Prince Feisal : You, I suspect, are chief architect of this compromise. What do you think?

  Mr. Dryden : Me, your Highness? On the whole, I wish I'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells.

• Mr. Dryden : [to Bentley, on a meeting between Lawrence and Allenby]  Well, I'll tell you. It's a little clash of temperament that's going on in there. Inevitably, one of them's half-mad - and the other, wholly unscrupulous.

• T.E. Lawrence : Where are they now?

  Mr. Dryden : Anywhere within 300 miles of Medina. They're Hashemite Bedouins. They can cross 60 miles of desert in a day.

  T.E. Lawrence : Oh,thanks Dryden. This is going to be fun.

  Mr. Dryden : Lawrence, only two kinds of creature get fun in the desert: Beduins and gods, and you're neither. Take it from me. For ordinary men, it's a burning fiery furnace.

  T.E. Lawrence : No,Dryden. It's going to be fun.

  Mr. Dryden : It is recognised that you have a funny sense of fun.

• General Allenby : I've got orders to obey, thank God. Not like that poor devil. He's riding the whirlwind.

  Mr. Dryden : Let's hope we're not.

• General Murray : [on the Arab Revolt]  It's a storm in a tea cup, Mr. Dryden - a sideshow. If you want my own opinion, this whole theater of operations is a sideshow! The real war's not being fought against the Turks, but the Germans. And not here, but on the Western front in the trenches! Your Bedouin Army - or whatever it calls itself - would be a sideshow OF a sideshow!

  Mr. Dryden : Big things have small beginnings, sir.

  General Murray : Does the Arab Bureau want a "big thing" in Arabia? If we get them to rise against the Turks, does the Bureau think they'll sit down quietly under us when this war's over?

  Mr. Dryden : The Arab Bureau thinks the job of the moment, sir, is to win the war.

  General Murray : Don't tell me my duty, Mr. Dryden!

• Jackson Bentley : Is Major Lawrence in there? Is he in trouble?

  Mr. Dryden : I would suspect so. We all have troubles. Life is a vale of troubles.

• General Allenby : What about your Arab friends? What about them?

  T.E. Lawrence : I have no Arab friends. I don't want Arab friends !

  General Allenby : What in Hell do you want, Lawrence?

  T.E. Lawrence : I told you! I just want my ration of common humanity.

  Mr. Dryden : Lawrence!

  [Lawrence turns away from Allenby to face Dryden] 

  Mr. Dryden : Nothing. Sorry I interrupted, Sir.

  General Allenby : [subdued]  Quite all right. Thank you, Mr Dryden. Look, why don't we, er... There's blood on your back. Do you want a Doctor ?

• Mr. Dryden : Well. It seems we're to have a British waterworks with an Arab flag on it. Do you think it was worth it?

  General Allenby : Not my business. Thank God I'm a soldier.

  Mr. Dryden : Yes, sir. So you keep saying.

• General Murray : I may as well tell you, it's my considered opinion and that of my staff that any time spent on the Bedouin will be time wasted.They're a nation of sheep-stealers.

  Mr. Dryden : They did attack Medina.

  General Murray : And the Turks made mincemeat of them.

  Mr. Dryden : We don't know that.

  General Murray : We know that they didn't take it. A storm in a teacup, a sideshow. If you want my own opinion, this whole theatre of operations is a sideshow. The real war's being fought against Germans, not Turks. And not here, but on the Western front in the trenches. Your Bedouin Army, or whatever it calls itself would be a sideshow of a sideshow.

  Mr. Dryden : Big things have small beginnings, sir.

  General Murray : Does the Arab Bureau want a "big thing" in Arabia? If we get them to rise against the Turks, does the Bureau think they'll sit down quietly under us when this war's over?

  Mr. Dryden : The Arab Bureau thinks the job of the moment, sir, is to win the war.

  General Murray : Don't tell me my duty, Mr. Dryden!