You may not know it but I'm no good at coping with all the attention in the luxury hotels I sometimes find myself in.

Sightseeing was ... based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.

One of the upsides of tourism is that people begin to take themselves a little more seriously (and think their) culture is worth something. So rather than disparaging the local culture, they vitalize it.

People talk about the pain of writing, but very few people talk about the pleasure and satisfaction.

He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone.

A travel book is a book that puts you in the shoes of the traveler, and it's usually a book about having a very bad time, having a miserable time, even better. You don't want to read a book about someone having a great time in the South of France, eating and drinking and falling in love. What you want to read is a book about a guy going through the jungle, going through the arctic snow, having a terrible time trying to cross the Sahara, and solving problems as they go.

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