- Dita: Poor Paul. He was so kind! How could it happen?
- Joe January: [Cynically] It happens...
- Dita: But to him? He believed in God!
- Joe January: I can't recite any Psalms for ya', but I know about people who believe in God. Our friend didn't! He put his faith in his father. A man! A human being! That's an easy faith to lose. I know about that, too.
- Dita: But he was a good man. He tried to do good. He dreamed of goodness all his life.
- Joe January: I'm gettin' a little sick of this "Poor Paul," "Kind man," "Full of grace." What does it take to wake you up? He didn't believe in anything but being a big-shot with God as a front. I've seen these do-gooders before - usually doin' the most good for themSELVES! Believing in God is different than drooling over rubies and emeralds.
- Joe January: [referring to the lost city] I've been walkin' around thinkin'. It's a great town for thinkin' - no distractions.
- Paul Bonnard: [Seeing Joe drinking whisky] Excuse me, monsieur, but I'm opposed to that.
- Joe January: [Belligerently] Opposed to what?
- Paul Bonnard: Taking liquor along.
- Joe January: Well, I'm not. We'll compromise. You live your way. I'll live mine!
- Paul Bonnard: For medicinal purposes perhaps it may be useful.
- Joe January: [Smiling] Best desert remedy on the market!
- Paul Bonnard: [In reference to his father, whose true character has been revealed] He lied!
- Joe January: Come on, he's paid his bills.
- Paul Bonnard: An adulterer! A murderer!
- Joe January: It can happen to any man, Paul - good *or* bad. Woman throws a harpoon into ya', and ya' go where SHE pulls.
- Joe January: If you're through with your Fainting Bertha tricks, we can move on.
- Paul Bonnard: You MUST stop talking to her like that! You will respect her!
- Dita: Him? Respect a woman?
- Joe January: You're a couple of fakes, both of ya'. I'm sick of watching ya' moaning about your souls and pawing each other...
- Paul Bonnard: We are a little world by ourselves in the desert, Joe. Let's be a civilized world!
- Joe January: Well, a couple of men and a dame are a strain on *any* civilization.
- Paul Bonnard: We are in, or near, the Tropic of Cancer.
- Joe January: We are on exactly 23 and a half degrees north of the equator. We are *on* the Tropic of Cancer! I know where we are. Where do you think we're going?
- Paul Bonnard: My father went from 23 and a half degrees north, by 5 degrees west, using dead reckoning, to approximately 5 degrees and 30 minutes west.
- Joe January: "Approximately"? "Dead reckoning"? A half a degree error can mean 30 or 40 miles!
- Paul Bonnard: One gets to imagine strange things in the desert.
- Joe January: Yeah, one meets them too!
- Joe January: [Giving Dita a whisky bottle] Here, dump that out and fill it with water. Shows you how serious the situation is.
- Paul Bonnard: It is amazing to walk alone in the desert. It is like walking over the face of a clock that has stopped.
- Paul Bonnard: I have spent ten years preparing for this trip. And I have studied the Sahara and its history. I know every word that's written about this dead sea of sand.
- Joe January: There's a lot to know about the desert.
- Paul Bonnard: You like the desert?
- Joe January: It's mine... It's all I own.
- Paul Bonnard: Shall I get firewood?
- Joe January: There isn't any. They burned up all the wood years ago.
- Joe January: [pointing over there] Use those chips.
- Paul Bonnard: [confused] "Chips"?
- Joe January: Camel... chips. Over there. See that stuff? Find the driest. It makes a good fire.
- Paul Bonnard: [after Bonnard took his pistol and shot Joe's whiskey bottle out of his hand] I'm sorry, Joe. I had to do it. I heard you talk.
- Joe January: So you took a shot at me?
- Paul Bonnard: No, not at you. At the liquor that was making you talk like that.
- Paul Bonnard: [extends his hand] Let's be friends, Joe. Let's start over.
- Joe January: [reluctant, then shakes Bonnard's hand] All right. We'll start over. But you pull a gun on me again, and one of us will be a *dead* friend.
- Joe January: What are we doin', out here in th' middle 'o' nowhere, lookin' fer nothin' in the wrong season!
- Joe January: [Looking down an underground cavern] It's pretty foul down there - 2000 years of busy bats!
- Paul Bonnard: I think this will be the most important job of your life.
- Joe January: What is it?
- Paul Bonnard: I'm going in search of my father.
- Joe January: A reunion, eh?
- Paul Bonnard: He disappeared in the desert ten years ago.
- Joe January: Well, just where do you expect to catch up with him?
- Paul Bonnard: I don't expect to find him... alive.
- Paul Bonnard: [as they're bivouacked for the night at the first oasis along the way] Do you know where we go after sighting Mount Tahat?
- Joe January: Well, there's nothing out there but a million years of dead sand.
- Paul Bonnard: Yeah, there is.
- Joe January: What?
- Paul Bonnard: I will tell you that when we get to Mount Tahat.
- Joe January: [incredulous, then drunkenly mocking him] Holy Mother of the Pyramids! You're out here after treasure? Oh! King Solomon's Mines or the Golden Tomb of My Aunt Minnie! Out in the middle o' nowhere, lookin' for nothin' in the wrong season!
- Joe January: [turns to one of the pack mules] Jeanette, you have a pal on this trip. A fellow jackass. It's ME! He-haw! He-haw! He-haw!
- Joe January: [as they come upon a group of desert natives, gathered at a watering hole] If you were scared when we saw those other Tuaregs, you oughta' be shaking now: those are Hoggars!
- Joe January: [Shortly after departing Timbuktu, Bonnard looks over as they ride past the bleached bones of a camel in the desert sand] Dropped out of a salt caravan. Even camels can't make it sometimes.
- Paul Bonnard: I thought that happened farther out?
- Joe January: You missed a few lessons in your "home desert study," Mr. Bonnard. It can happen anywhere. I've seen dead animals - and men - a hundred yards from water. That wind blows, and the sand moves, and it's goodbye water hole.
- Paul Bonnard: The oasis of Asselar will not be covered.
- Joe January: [looks at him a bit bemused] You can start your prayin' right now.
- Dita: Paul, you said God forgives somebody who's bad, if they turn good. Doesn't He forgive somebody who's good if they turn bad?
- Joe January: You keep your sticky fingers out of this, dear friend. I'll take the job if there's enough in it to buy me out of Timbuktu.
- Paul Bonnard: And how much is that?
- Joe January: Well, I owe this drinker of human blood around 1,000.
- Paul Bonnard: The world is full of ferocious animals. But there is only one unkind one. Man. Animals will kill, but a man does worse. He hurts.
- Dita: I hate men.
- Paul Bonnard: I thought we'd take camels.
- Joe January: Did you ever ride one?
- Paul Bonnard: No.
- Joe January: We'll use donkeys.
- Joe January: Come on, I'll buy you a drink.
- Dita: No.
- Joe January: Why not? It's my last night. Maybe my last night in Timbuktu. Come on, we'll give it a nice goodbye.
- Paul Bonnard: He is a friend of yours?
- Dita: Yes. He is a friend. They're all friends, all the pigs in Timbuktu! I hate myself!
- Paul Bonnard: I will remember a woman whose heart was full of pain. I have to go. Goodbye, Dita.
- Joe January: If you want to scrub up Dita's soul, it's all right with me. It may take a little time.
- Dita: Go on, laugh at me, because a man sat talking to me all night as if I were a human being. Go on, laugh, you desert pig!
- Joe January: I hate loud chippies.
- Dita: Dirt, dirt! That's all you are!
- Dita: Talk to me.
- Paul Bonnard: You're like a small child asking for fairy tales.
- Dita: A child. If I only was. If I could start over...
- Paul Bonnard: You can. Everybody can do what they want.
- Joe January: What are you stewing about, mon capitaine? Bonnard told you where we were going last night.
- Prefect Dukas: Where?
- Joe January: The Sahara Desert. Straight ahead and turn to your left.
- Joe January: A lost city and a batty dame. Well, you work on her soul, Mr. Bonnard, and I'll take care of the desert.
- Dita: My mother taught me only one thing. Not to cry. Every time I cried, she slapped me till I stopped. She said, "Men don't buy cry-babies. "
- Dita: Are you sick?
- Joe January: Why?
- Dita: You haven't sneered at me the whole day.
- Joe January: Maybe I'm recovering some lost virtue myself.
- Dita: I went to different towns. I met men. The pictures stay in my head, always the same. Same hands, crawling all over me like bugs. I'd like to peel off my skin and be new.
- Joe January: There's no Garden of Eden.
- Paul Bonnard: You are not giving orders.
- Joe January: You want to turn her into a little pile of white bones? Do you want to die chasing a mirage? We've got eight hours of water left. After that, we sit down and burn up.
- Paul Bonnard: You are not giving orders to us.
- Joe January: All right, but I'm giving orders to one Joe January. You can do what you want.