I craved for the past, resented the present, and dreaded the future. - Wilfred Thesiger

I have led a hard life; this was my choice. It was also an inexpensive one: this was essential. I would not have had it otherwise, nor asked for more. Looking back, I would happily live these years again, in the context of the past.

Arabs rule but they do not administer. Their government is intensely individualistic, and is successful or unsuccessful according to the degree of fear and respect which the ruler commands, and his skill in dealing with individual men. Founded on an individual life, their government is impermanent and liable to end in chaos at any moment. To Arab tribesmen this system is comprehensible and acceptable, and its success of failure should not be measured in terms of efficiency and justice as judged by Western standards. To these tribesmen security can be bought too dearly by the loss of individual freedom.

I could now move without effort from one world to the other as easily as I could change my clothes, but I appreciated that I was in danger of belonging to neither. When I was among my own people, a shadowy figure was always at my side watching them with critical, intolerant eyes.