It is the simplest fact of Indian life: there are too many Indians.

The lust of the eye. The best photographs were, to me, like an experience of drowning.

You must not judge people by their country. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude.

I'm a tourist, a glorified tourist. I'm not doing it to have a good time or to lie in the sun.

The monotony of staying in one place is the best thing for writing a novel. Having regular habits, a kind of security, but especially no big surprises, no shocks.

A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it, and has a hard time, and then comes back and writes about it. It's not about inventing.

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.