And the ideal travel writer is consumed not just with a will to know. He is also moved by a powerful will to teach.

If truth is the main casualty in war, ambiguity is another.

I am working on a book urging the beating to death of baby whales using the dead bodies of baby seals.

I find nothing more depressing than optimism.

Chickenshit can be recognized instantly because it never has anything to do with winning the war.

Travelers learn not just foreign customs and curious cuisines and unfamiliar beliefs and novel forms of government. They learn, if they are lucky, humility.

Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.