It's time we were told what it's all about. We want to know why we were kidnapped, why we're being kept here, but most important of all, do we get the porters and when? Until we get this information, my dear Mr. Chang, I am very much afraid we cannot permit you to leave this room....

[to the High Lama] It's astonishing and incredible, but...you're the man...You're still alive, Father Perrault!

Something grand and beautiful, George. Something I've been searching for all my life. The answer to the confusion and bewilderment of a lifetime. I've found it, George, and I can't leave it. You mustn't either.

[to George, about Maria] She's a fragile thing that can only live where fragile things are loved. Take her out of this valley and she'll fade away like an echo.

[to Robert] I saw a man whose life was empty...Oh I know, it was full of this and full of that. But you were accomplishing nothing. You were going nowhere, and you knew it. As a matter of fact, all I saw was a little boy whistling in the dark.

[to Robert] You're absolutely right. And I had to come all the way to a pigeon house in Shangri-La to find the only other person in the world who knew it. May I congratulate you?

You may not know it, but you're all prisoners here who were literally kidnapped and brought here and nobody knows why. Well, I'm not content to be a prisoner. I'm going to find out when we're going to get out of this place. I'll make that Chinese talk if it's the last thing I do.

[to Robert] What else can I think after a tale like that?...I think you've been hypnotized by a lot of loose-brained fanatics.

To put it simply, I should say that our general belief was in moderation. We preach the virtue of avoiding excesses of every kind, even including excess of virtue itself...We find in the valley it makes for greater happiness among the natives. We rule with moderate strictness and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience. As a result, our people are moderately honest, moderately chaste, and somewhat more than moderately happy.