I don't think that if I had spent the time that I was in, say, Belgrade, writing about my time in Trieste, which is where I had just been, that would have been productive. I told myself: take extensive notes while you're there, do the research part of it, and then pray, pray, the muses will be available when the actual 'ready' happens.

I have yet to get sued. My father thinks I should get liability insurance.

Talk to people who know more than you. I feel like we're in this stupid sea of opinion, like "My opinion is valid because it's mine and I have it."

Go to a place and just send out emails. That's my entire life. I go to countries and I ask, "Who would I know who lives here?" Not even do I know, but who exists and is on the planet.

There's this resistance to actually talking to people who are smarter than you about things and I don't know why that is.

I knew my motivations for going to each place and what I was looking for. If I don't do that then I generally don't write about my travels.

Once you leave, you're no longer of that country, but you are never actually of the country that you go to, and if you go back, you're not anywhere. You never belong to anything.