Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the trip. And so the travel writer is doing the traveling for you.

There are two worlds: the world of the tourist and the world of everyone else. Often they're side by side. But the tourist doesn't actually see how people live.

I think that love isn't what you think it is when you're in your twenties or even thirties.

The greatest justification for travel is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace.

When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books.

And that is all anyone can do, try to be honest about what he feels, what he's seen or thinks he's seen.

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.