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

You can't write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend.

You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.

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

Going slowly [...] was the best way of being reminded that there is a relationship between Here and There, and that travel narrative was the story of There and Back.

One of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.

Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.