I had cooperated. I could not have refused. I was smitten with her, half in love but also afraid, because in my life (and she seemed to know this) I had not loved anyone without having been wounded. L...
He was serene, fulfilled, the real thing, the person no one wants to hear about, a happy man.
Faulkner first spoke about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the hypocrisy of boasting of our values to our enemies after we have taught them (as we are now doing) that when we talk of freedom and liber...
Do you know Aggrey Awori?’ Mushana said, ‘He’s an old man.’ Awori was my age, regarded as a miracle of longevity in an AIDS stricken country; a Harvard graduate, Class of ’63, a track star. Thirty yea...
Death rephrases the life of everyone who's near.
A British traveler remarked, 'There are [fashions in Guatemala] which it would require more than common charity to speak of with respect...' FILL IN YOUR OWN GRIPES! ;-)
Home is always the impossible subject, multilayered and maddening.
Last days? Don't they know? These are the traits of all days, every day, everywhere.
But art should require no instrument but memory.
All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.
A river is an appropriate frontier. Water is neutral and in its impartial winding makes the national boundary look like an act of God.—OPE
I was raised in a large family. The first reason for my travel was to get away from my family. I knew that I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't want people to ask me questions about it.
Travel is transition, and at its best it is a journey from home, a setting forth. I hated parachuting into a place. I needed to be able to link one place to another. One of the problems I had with tra...
One of the sicknesses of the twentieth century? I'll tell you the worst one. People can't stand to be alone. Can't tolerate it! So they go to the movies, get drive-in hamburgers, put their home teleph...
On that trip it was my good fortune to be wrong; being mistaken is the essence of the traveler's tale.
No light; but rather darkness visible Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell; hope never comes That comes to all; but torture wi...
Even the smoke of our motherland is sweet and pleasant to us.)
All the crockery in China had been smashed – flung over the years in all the periodic convulsions for which China was famous. All the blood-stained carpets had been tossed away. All the ancestors’ por...
All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting.
I think people read travel books either because they intend to take that trip, or because they would never take that trip. In a sense, as a writer you are doing the travel for the reader.