I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom.

All politicians, even the most idealistic ones, are looking for money, sucking up to rich people.

The conversation, like many others I had with people on trains, derived an easy candour from the shared journey, the comfort of the dining car, and the certain knowledge that neither of us would see each other again.

The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity.

A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it, and has a hard time, and then comes back and writes about it. It's not about inventing.

To a lot of Africans, seeing an animal is a something of a rarity. So it's a paradox of this sort of parallel life. A safari is an expensive experience and it's adjacent to a place where people are having a very tough time.

The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.