M.M. Kaye Quotes & Sayings

They rode out together from the shadows of the trees, leaving the Bala Hissar and the glowing torch of the burning Residency behind them, and spurred away across the flat lands towards the mountains ...
And it may even be that they found their Kingdom. — M.M. Kaye

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

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. — M.M. Kaye

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

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

I still subscribe to the minority view that all horses are offensive weapons and not to be trusted a yard. — M.M. Kaye

Lavender's blue,
Rosemary's green,
When you are king,
I shall be queen — M.M. Kaye

It is not an easy thing to be a woman and love with the whole heart: which men do not understand
having many loves, and delighting in danger and war. — M.M. Kaye

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. — M.M. Kaye

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

Common sense will nearly always stand you in better stead than a slavish adherence to the conventions. — M.M. Kaye

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

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

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 be of any value to him again. — M.M. Kaye

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. — M.M. Kaye

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

Oh, Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations.
Thou art Everywhere, but I worship thee here:
Thou art without form, but I worship thee in these forms;
Thou needest no praise, yet I offer thee these prayers and salutations.
Lord, forgive three sins that are due to my human limitations.
- Ash — M.M. Kaye

Within that ageing outer shell we remain very much the same as we did in our late teens and early twenties. — M.M. Kaye

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

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. — M.M. Kaye

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 child is killed it is a barbarous murder and a hundred lives - or a thousand - are sacrificed to avenge it. It is only a man like John Nicholson who has the courage to write, and mean it, that the safety of "women and children in some crises is such a very minor consideration that it ceases to be a consideration at all". If only more men thought like that you could all stay in Lunjore and be damned to you! — M.M. Kaye