Henry Williamson "He padded into the cottage. His eyes and head moved with noticeable quickness. He was instantly alert to what one said, he reacted to every movement. He knew what one was going to say before it was said. His reflexes were extraordinarily quick and sensitive: quicksilver. He did not appear to be a man; he was more like a boy, but without a boy's lack of freedom. Was he tall, was he short? It was not noticeable. This was not due to my having lost my head; rather, I had found my head-firm on my shoulders. But at the time, I did not have these thoughts or rather reflections: I formulated them later. All I felt at the moment was that, for the first time in my life, I was becoming real and strong....I was my true, firm self." From Henry Williamson, Threnos for T.E. Lawrence p. 11.

E.F. Hall "'There was a craving to be liked-so strong and nervous that never could I open myself friendly to another.' Yet, though he took no part in the organized games of school life, he was never unpopular. Any conception of a solitary, moody schoolboy shunning company of his fellows is wide of the mark. He was far too whimsical in his leg-pulling, too interesting in his hobbies, ever to be unpopular. He had always in his pockets a bit of pottery, or part of a bicycle 3-speed gear (at that time a new invention of which, among us, he was the first and proud possessor), or a brass-rubbing from some country church. I remember the fascination of that rubbing of a man 'eaten of worms' which rumour said that he kept by his bedside while he slept." TELBHFp.46

Apsley Cherry-Garrard "As I see Lawrence he went out into the desert in agonies of doubt about himself, with a dream of reviving the Arabian Empire of Abu Bekr, and in a spirit of mortification which governed so much of his life. The acerbity of the East, the austerity of the desert was to him a purification. When he was leading this life he could look himself in the face: he was justified. Impelled by whatever motives - and ambition soon became a vain thing - he put himself in the forefront of the battle. Action was his antiseptic as afterwards speed was his drug. If others were brave he would be braver; he deliberately chose out the toughest crowd: and he would be tougher than them all; as their leader he would, unlike most generals, share their hardships as in the old manhauling days of polar exploration. And not only did he lead them thus, but in doing so became their personal friend. In TELBHF

George Bernard Shaw to TE, Oct. 7th, 1924 "Confound you and your book: you are no more to be trusted with a pen than a child with a torpedo." A Prince of Our Disorder Chapter 27, p. 352 + footnote #82 (Boston, Little Brown 1976)

"... in general he did not believe in human contacts. Seldom, perhaps never, did he give the whole of himself to anyone. He even disliked shaking hands, and when he was introduced to anyone he would instinctively put his hands behind his back and make a slight bow. It was almost a defensive attitude. Even if I hadn't seen him for some time I wouldn't dream of shaking hands with him." The Golden Reign Chapter 9, p. 42 (Lon, Cassell 1978)

"He had Shelley's trick of noiselessly vanishing and reappearing. We would be sitting, reading on my only sofa: I would look up and Lawrence was not only not in the room, he was not in the house, he was not in Jerusalem. He was in the train on his way to Egypt." TELBHF Ronald Storrs p.152

"The simplicity of his life was extreme. He smoked no tobacco, he drank no alcohol; but alas, he used a drug. His drug was speed, which cost him his life. He once raced along the open road against an aeroplane and led it for nearly a quarter of an hour." TELBHF Ronald Storrs p.153

"...one biographer has made the definite statement that Lawrence never looked a man in the eye; now the thing I remember more than anything else about Lawrence is the directness of his gaze. Others have remarked that he never took alcohol, but when we dined together he drank wine of various sorts freely." TELBHF Ralph H. Isham p.261

"...he returned the decorations sent him by other governments, with the exception of the Croix de Guerre of France, which he sent round the streets of Oxford on the neck of Hogarth's dog." TELBHF Editor's Note p.265

"He said he would however co-operate with any film based on his Arabian career if it were done in the manner and spirit of Mickey Mouse..." TELBHF Ralph H. Isham p.270

Of TE in the Barton St. flat: "He sat, fireless, in very cold weather, wearing a leather, wool-lined flying suit, with the fattest fountain pen I have ever seen - where he got it I don't know - and wrote in a splendid great Kalamazoo note-book, leather bound and secured with a patent lock that delighted him." TELBHF Vyvyan Richards p.342

"...for all those who meet Lawrence see a facet of his personality that largely depends on their own cast of thought, and so is often different. Moreover, the same man at different meetings may see different aspects. It has led some of his friends to christen him the 'human chameleon'." Colonel Lawrence: The Man Behind the Legend p.12

"If Conan Doyle had been born a generation later he would have found in Lawrence an apt model from which to create Sherlock Holmes." Colonel Lawrence: The Man Behind the Legend p.70