“He sat in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zam-Zammeh, on her old platform, opposite the old Ajaib gher, the Wonder House, as the natives called the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab, for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot.”
“Open the old cigar-box .....let me consider anew..... Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you? A million surplus Maggies are willing 'o bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a Smoke. Light me another Cuba..... I hold to my first-sworn vows, If Maggie will have no rival, I'll have no Maggie for spouse!”
“The Man went to sleep in front of the fire ever so happy; but the Woman sat up, combing her hair. She took the bone of the shoulder of mutton – the big fat blade bone – and she looked at the wonderful marks on it, and she threw more wood on the fire, and she made a Magic. She made the first Singing Magic in the world.”
“What is a woman that you forsake herAnd the hearth fire and the home acreTo go with that old grey widow-maker?”
“They are fools who kiss and tell'--Wisely has the poet sung.Man may hold all sorts of postsIf he'll only hold his tongue.”
“[A Buddhist monk on a pilgrimage speaks to a museum curator.]And I come here alone. For five--seven--eighteen--forty years it was in my mind that the old Law was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with devildom, charms, and idolatry....'So it comes with all faiths.”
“...If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!”