Buying a bicycle is a momentous event, akin to marriage: you are acquiring a partner.

The Irish have a flair for wringing from death the last drop of emotion and they do not quite understand those who react otherwise.

The more I see of life in these 'undeveloped countries' and of the methods adopted to 'improve' them, the more depressed I become. It seems criminal that the backwardness of a country like Afghanistan should be used as an excuse for America and Russia to have a tug-of-war for possession.

With our mad lust for Uniformity and a Higher Standard of Living and Expanding Markets, we go to a country like Afghanistan and cruelly try to jerk her forward two thousand years in two decades, giving no thought to the profound shock this must be to her national psychology.

poverty denotes a lack of necessities and simplicity a lack of needs.

There are two phases of enjoyment in journeying through an unknown country - the eager phase of wondering interest in every detail, and the relaxed phase when one feels no longer an observer of the exotic, but a participator in the rhythm of daily life.

... I know a number of Western children who would benefit greatly if only someone were primitive enough to inhibit the development of their personalities.