[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.
Dervla MurphyThere 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.
Dervla MurphyThe Irish have a flair for wringing from death the last drop of emotion and they do not quite understand those who react otherwise.
Dervla Murphyone of the advantages of cycling is that it automatically prevents a journey from becoming an Expedition.
Dervla MurphyThis is a city of absolute enchantment in the literal sense of the word. It loosens all the bonds binding the traveller to his own age and sets him free to live in a past that is vital and crude but never ugly. Herat is as old as history and as moving as a great epic poem - if Afghanistan had nothing else it would have been worth coming to experience this.
Dervla Murphy