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

When I'm writing, I like to travel alone. If you really want to find out about a place, you need to be as free as possible to be spontaneous. You also need to be lonely, because loneliness is a great teacher, too.

Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.

Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari; Africans don't.

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

Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall.

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