There’s a lot of sensuality that I associate with travel. And that’s romance.
Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.
The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.
What I find is that you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you’re not in a hurry.
No one has ever described the place where I have just arrived: this is the emotion that makes me want to travel. It is one of the greatest reasons to go anywhere.
Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.
Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari; Africans don’t.
Reading alters the appearance of a book. Once it has been read, it never looks the same again, and people leave their individual imprint on a book they have read. Once of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.
The amount of hassle involved in travel can be overwhelming.
Travel is about failure or overcoming obstacles, overcoming failures. When a traveler is having lots of good luck, that is not a happy book. That’s a book you say, well, I don’t need that. I want a life lesson. I want to find out – I want a journey that reflects my life.
Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don’t know and trusting them with your life.
It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.
Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.
Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the trip. And so the travel writer is doing the traveling for you.
You define a good flight by negatives: you didn’t get hijacked, you didn’t crash, you didn’t throw up, you weren’t late, you weren’t nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.
He regarded himself as an accomplished writer – a clear sign of madness in anyone.
Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.
Reading is also a journey. It’s a process of discovery.
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.
Travel works best when you’re forced to come to terms with the place you’re in.