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

You don't have to go to New York and you don't have to go to LA or London. Go somewhere cheap. Go somewhere with free art museums and then just go to art museums.

Men exist on the planet. We have to deal with them at some point.

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.

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.

Just send the emails and talk to people. Spend all your money on nail polish and opera tickets.

My belief that the publishing industry is run by prigs and cowards dates back to many years before I even had the idea for the book.