Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

If I am seen as successful, it's all the more reason not to change - not to lose track of friends, not to be driven everywhere, not to go and get away from the world. That, to me, is real success: enjoying what you do, but being the same person.

I'm aware that, if you feel down, it can be strangely unrelated to circumstances around you. That's just the way life is.

I think some of the best modern writing comes now from travellers.

People say the most stupid things on the spur of the moment that they then have to retract.

Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life

My parents have been married forty-two years. I wonder how many of those were happy.