I hate vacations. I hate them. I have no fun on them. I get nothing done. People sit and relax, but I don't want to relax. I want to see something.

I said I didn't think it would be a collectivist state so much as a wilderness in which most people lived hand to mouth, and the rich would live like princes - better than the rich had ever lived, except that their lives would constantly be in danger from the hungry predatory poor. All the technology would serve the rich, but they would need it for their own protection and to assure their continued prosperity.

Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.

It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.

It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.

Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life

You can't save the rhinos and you can't preserve a culture. I'm very pessimistic. Once it's gone, it's over.