hatred, however apparently justifiable, excusable or inevitable, always damages the hater.

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

[On Addis Ababa:] Among the city's handicaps are an immaturity for which no one can be blamed, as it was founded only eighty years ago, and a proliferation of architectural excesses for which many people can and should be blamed.

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.

one of the advantages of cycling is that it automatically prevents a journey from becoming an Expedition.

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.

On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as presents and a few days later I decided to cycle to India.