- Isabelle Eberhardt: Isn't there any place for dreamers anymore, Slimene?
- Slimene: Sure. The whole world is run by them.
- Slimene: When God made us meet it must have been in fulfilment of a curse.
- Isabelle Eberhardt: What curse?
- Slimene: That neither of us will be happy.
- Isabelle Eberhardt: I wasn't happy a long time before I met you.
- Isabelle Eberhardt: I want to go back to Africa, Slimene.
- Slimene: Why?
- Isabelle Eberhardt: There is something there. Something I just got a glimpse of at the end.
- Slimene: What?
- Isabelle Eberhardt: Peace.
- Slimene: Peace? You nearly got killed.
- Isabelle Eberhardt: Yes, peace. The peace of the soul.
- Slimene: Listen to me, Mahmood. I don't know what you thought when you married me, but in an Arab house the man is the boss.
- Isabelle Eberhardt: Then show me the man.
- Isabelle Eberhardt: I've had many lovers in my life, Colonel, but too few friends.
- Maj. Lyautey: And I hope you will allow me to be a friend.
- Lachmi: [to Isabelle Eberhardt] Look at you. Dressed as an Arab man. What are you, Mahmood? Arab? European? Man? Woman? You don't know what you are. And so you come here to lose yourself in what you don't understand.
- [first lines]
- Isabelle Eberhardt: I've searched for me, and in doing so I've wasted my body to make my soul lighter.