Airplanes have dulled and desensitized us; we are encumbered, like lovers in a suit of armor.

I believe I have a sunny disposition, and am not naturally a grouch. It takes a lot of optimism, after all, to be a traveler.

Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way

In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed.

I grew up in an era of thinking of travel as escape. The idea that you could conceivably have a new life, go somewhere, fall in love, have little children under the palm trees.

I know there are writers who feel unhappy with domesticity and who even manufacture domestic turmoil in order to have something to write about. With me, though, the happier I feel, the better I write.

In a way, Che Guevara's fate was far worse than Simon Bolivar's. Guevara's collapse was complete: his intentions were forgotten, but his style was taken up by boutique owners (one of the fanciest clothes stores in London is called Che Guevara). There is no faster way of destroying a man or mocking his ideas than making him fashionable. That Che succeeded in influencing dress-designers was part of his tragedy.