That was my Malawian epiphany. Only Africans were capable of making a difference in Africa. All the others, donors and volunteers and bankers, however idealistic, were simply agents of subversion.
Last days? Don’t they know? These are the traits of all days, every day, everywhere.
It seemed that his anger was partly theatrical, that he was amping up his shouts to intimidate me.
Why do things get weaker and worse? Why don’t they get better? Because we accept that they fall apart! But they don’t have to – they could last forever. Why do things get more expensive? Any fool can see that they should get cheaper as technology gets more efficient. It’s despair to accept the senility of obsolescence...
An aimless joy is a pure joy,” I said, quoting Yeats.
In travel, as in many other experiences in life, once is usually enough.
You travel all over,” the woman said. “Do you write about your travels?” I said, Yes, I did. Articles. Books. Whatever. “You must write Paul Theroux-type travel books,” she said. I said, Exactly, and told her why.
And father said “I never wanted this. I’m sick of everyone pretending to be old Dan Beavers in his L. L. Bean moccasins, and his Dubbelwares, and his Japanese bucksaw – all these fake frontiersmen with their chuck wagons full of Twinkies and Wonderbread and aerosol cheese spread. Get out the Duraflame log and the plastic cracker barrel, Dan, and let’s talk self-sufficiency!
All solitary travel offers a sort of special license allowing you to be anyone you want to be.
The three biggest funerals in Alabama history define the state’s contending loyalties, I was told: George Wallace’s, Martin Luther King’s, and Bear Bryant’s.
Normal, nice people don’t become writers.
Nothing is more satisfying in travel than to land in a place and assume an occupation, even a temporary one, as a teacher.
Nature is crooked. I wanted right angles and straight lines. Ice! Oh, why do they all drip? You cut yourself opening a can of tuna fish and you die. One puncture in your foot and your life leaks out through your toe. What are they for, moose antlers? Get down on all fours and live. You’re protected on your hands and knees. It’s either that or wings.
When she was done, I talked to her a little – and I was the only one.
The mist, the rain, and cold, low clouds gave the train a feeling of early morning, a chill and predawn dimness that lasted until noon.
I wanted to find a new self in a distant place, and new things to care about.
I believe in every possible manifestation of spiritual strangeness. I believe in all possible escapes. The only thing I cannot endure is reality, whatever it may be. I believe that the writer is defined by the constant necessity of creating a world, to depart from this world. Literature is more concerned with misery than with happiness. Writing is directly related to frustration. It is a reflection of personal desperation. The writer is profoundly disgusted with his reality.
The sunset’s fire was tangled in leaden clouds, and the pillars of rain supporting the toppling thunderheads were very close;.
The only cure for seasickness is to sit on the shady side of an old brick church in the country.
It seems to me that there is always something luminous in the face of a person in the act of reading.
I cannot think of any writer of stature in English who has not shown a knowledge of the Bible.