The screenwriters depict Lawrence as an egotist. It is not clear to what degree Lawrence sought or shunned attention, as evidenced by his use of various assumed names after the war. Even during the war, Lowell Thomas wrote in "With Lawrence in Arabia" that he could take pictures of him only by tricking him, but Lawrence later agreed to pose for several photos for Thomas's stage show. Thomas's famous comment that Lawrence "had a genius for backing into the limelight" can be taken to suggest that his extraordinary actions prevented him from being as private as he would have liked, or it can be taken to suggest that Lawrence made a pretence of avoiding the limelight but subtly placed himself at centre stage. Others point to Lawrence's own writings to support the argument that he was egotistical.