Talbot Mundy QUOTES

21 " Consider this, my son: this earth-life is a little time, of which
a third is spent asleep. What went before it, and what cometh after,
are a long time--verily a time too long for measurement. Shall we
be of the herd who say that dreams are a delusion because waking
we can not interpret them in terms of common speech? Or shall we,
rather than pretend to have more knowledge than the gods, admit
that possibly some dreams may link us with that universe from which
we came into a temporary world, and into which we must inevitably
yield ourselves again? Some dreams are memories, it may be, of
experience gained in the infinity of time before the world was.
And the wisest--aye, the very wisest of us--is he altogether sure
that all earth-life is not a dream.--From The Book Of The Sayings
Of Tsiang Samdup "

― Talbot Mundy , The Devil's Guard

22 " You may be sure of this, my son: that no decision you may take,
nor any course, will meet with universal favor. Though you turn
to the right or to the left, or go ahead, or turn back, or attempt
to stand still, there will come to you some critic to advise the
contrary. For ten fail where the one succeeds; and some who failed
are jealous, others vain, some full of malice. There are also honest
men who, having failed, would warn you of the reef on which they
wrecked their too unmanageable bark. I tell you, in the end you
must decide all issues for yourself, and there is only one true guide,
which is experience.--From The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup "

― Talbot Mundy , The Devil's Guard

23 " Of every ten who tread the Middle Way to Knowledge there are nine
who turn aside through avarice, though not all avarice is born of
belly-hunger or the greed for gold. Some seek preeminence, such
eminence as they have won corroded by insane pride. So by this
mark you shall know the Middle Way, that whoso treads it truly
avoids vices, having found them in himself, so that he knows their
habit and is temperate in judgment, throwing no stones lest he
break the windows of his own soul.--From The Book Of The Sayings
of Tsiang Samdup "

― Talbot Mundy , The Devil's Guard

24 " I am a lama," said the man in yellow. "It is lamas who identify
incarnate Buddhas. If I say the Lord Chenresi is among us, some
will listen. Some of high rank will confirm my word. It is a good
thing for religion to have manifestations--which have been scarce
of late, and men are not so respectful as they used to be. Also,
it is a long way from Lhassa to this monastery. There can be a
rumor sent forth, that will take hold and excite, arousing the hope
of people, of whom many will be monks. So that they who will be
sent from Lhassa to investigate will not dare to deny the story,
knowing how much safer it is to deceive men than to undeceive them. "

― Talbot Mundy , The Devil's Guard

25 " And forget not this: that outward semblance of authority is not
a necessary symptom of its essence. There are men in high place
who have no authority at all beyond what indolence confers because
the indolence of many is the opportunity of one. Such men lead
multitudes astray.--From The Book Of The Sayings Of Tsiang Samdup "

― Talbot Mundy , The Devil's Guard

26 " Oh, would that
I had died the way the Sikh did! I can not go forward. I shall
not submit to being made to see more clearly than I do. Yet, if
I turn back I am self-confessed coward! Furthermore, how can I
turn back! How shall I reach India, alone, alive? As a corpse I
should no longer interest myself. And if I should succeed in
reaching India, I should despise myself, because you and Jimgrim
treated me as fellow man and yet I failed you. On the other hand,
if I go forward they will teach me the reality of things, of which
already I know much too much! It has been bad enough as failed
B.A. to stick my tongue into my cheek and flatter blind men--
pompous Englishmen and supine Indians--for a living. I have had
to eat dust from the wheels of what the politicians think is
progress; and I have had to be polite when I was patronized by
men whom I should pity if I had the heart to do it! And I could
endure it, Rammy sahib, because I only knew more than was good
for me and not all of it by any means! I do not wish to know more.
If I saw more clearly I should have to join the revolutionaries--
who are worse than those they revolute against! It is already
bad enough to have to toady to the snobs on top. To have to agree
with the snobs underneath, who seek to level all men to a common
meanness since they can not admire any sort of superiority--that
would be living death! I would rather pretend to admire the
Englishman whose snobbery exasperates me, than repeat the lies
of Indians whose only object is to do dishonestly and badly but
much more cleverly what the English do honestly and with all the
stupidity of which they are capable! "

― Talbot Mundy , The Devil's Guard

27 " Marmaduke's theory was that, as he couldn't understand Christianity, it was safe to premise that people whose religion was a mixture of degraded Buddhism and devilworship couldn't understand it either. So he founded a Buddhist mission, to teach 'em their own religion. "

― Talbot Mundy , Om, the Secret of Ahbor Valley

28 " Published in America in 1914 by Charles Scribner, this novel — Mundy’s first — was praised by critics and quickly sold 2,500 copies and a second edition was commissioned, bringing the total books printed up to 4,000. "

― Talbot Mundy , Collected Works of Talbot Mundy

29 " I spoke to you all of the Wheel,” he said quietly. “The Wheel turns and unless we are alert an opportunity is snatched or taken, for us or against us. In a place, which you shall see, the Nine have preserved for centuries a truth—knowledge of a truth, that is; for truth is like skill, unless used constantly it disappears. The time will come, but is not yet, when that truth may be given to the world with safety. Those in whose hands the ancient secrets are, being human, have made mistakes. Knowledge in the hands of criminals and fools is worse than ignorance. "

― Talbot Mundy , The Nine Unknown

30 " The wonderful thing about Moab is that everything happens in a story-book setting, with illustrations by Maxfield Parrish and Wyeth and Joe Coll, and all the rest of them, whichever way you look.

Imagine a blue sky—so clear-blue and pure that you can see against it the very feathers in the tails of wheeling kites, and know that they are brown, not black. Imagine all the houses, and the shacks between them, and the poles on which the burlap awnings hang, painted on flat canvas and stood up against that infinite blue. Stick some vultures in a row along a roof-top—purplish—bronze they’ll look between the tiles and sky. Add yellow camels, gray horses, striped robes, long rifles, and a searching sun-dried smell. And there you have El-Kerak, from the inside.

From any point along the broken walls or the castle roof you can see for fifty miles over scenery invented by the Master-Artist, with the Jordan like a blue worm in the midst of yellow-and-green hills twiggling into a turquoise sea.

The villains stalk on-stage and off again sublimely aware of their setting. The horses prance, the camels saunter, the very street-dogs compose themselves for a nap in the golden sun, all in perfect harmony with the piece. A woman walking with a stone jar on her head (or, just as likely, a kerosene can) looks as if she had just stepped out of eternity for the sake of the picture. And not all the kings and kaisers, cardinals and courtezans rolled into one great swaggering splurge of majesty could hold a candle to a ragged Bedouin chief on a flea-bitten pony, on the way to a small-town mejlis. "

― Talbot Mundy , Jimgrim and Allah's Peace