Cocktails and Camels Quotes

“I had not known very much about America because, of course, I had been to the English Girls' College where, in the history class, the emphasis had been more on the colonies acquired rather than the colonies lost. I did know, however, that when the British left there was a civil war, which is apparently what always happens when the British leave a place.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“Chairs and sofas were covered with white dust sheets. Many people did this during the summer to make the house look cooler and protect all the petit point and furniture from dust and moths. I hated this habit. It seemed senseless to protect furniture which would live longer than we would anyway.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“Mobs are easily stirred and swayed in Egypt.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“It was a beautiful day. I noticed these things now, though I never used to think of the weather when I lived in Egypt—but then I never used to think at all.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“then we got out of the car and I saw something I have never forgotten, though it did not particularly shock me at the time. Because it was August and the Nile was high, the gangway which the guests had to walk on to get to the boat rested on the
shoulders of a dozen or so ragged-looking men. Clad in their usual filthy galabias, the ends of which they had grabbed between their teeth, they stood in the slush while the guests, women in expensive gowns and men in spotless white sharkskin jackets, tripped lightheartedly onto the boat.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“It was strange how music could make and unmake a mood.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“You must never, never smile, because then people think you are having a good time and it is very un-English to show off.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“Aunt had been delighted to be with her kind of people again, for although she had been in the States for about twenty years now, in her mind she had been living in the Lebanon.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels

“Uncle and his younger brother had left the Lebanon when they were in their teens to seek a fortune in the New World. They needn't have bothered to go quite so far, because the Lebanese are pretty good at making money anywhere.”
― Jacqueline Carol, Cocktails and Camels