121 quotes found
“Exploration is a dirty game.”
“In India everything has a use and a value.”
“Stories are a communal currency of humanity.”
“A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.”
“There is nothing like a train journey for reflection.”
“A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.”
“[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.”
“For me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news -- as you learn how much more of it's been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that is my home”
“The rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.”
“There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.”
“Real terror is a crippling experience. You sweat so much that your skin goes all wrinkly like when you've been in the bath all afternoon. And then the scent of your sweat changes. It smells like ca...”
“A cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had...”
“There is nothing quite as unpleasant as wearing a pair of briefs which have been trailed through a Calcutta courtyard. Nothing, that is, except having one's elbows and knees lacerated by unseen sli...”
“Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent.”
“Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It's inside us al, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purg...”
“There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.”
“I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains.”
“In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.”
“Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.”
“My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints,...”
“Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood. With such a book the impact isn't necessarily obvious ...”
“Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster.”
“Experience has taught me the power of trophies. You may have every knick-knack and useless contraption ever devised, but while they weigh you down, a simple trophy can go a long, long way.”
“Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of w...”
“In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.”
“As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end.”
