Now and then in travel, something unexpected happens that transforms the whole nature of the trip and stays with the traveler.

There's a lot of sensuality that I associate with travel. And that's romance.

In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed.

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.

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

... Oceanic malaise. I never saw anyone reading anything more demanding than a comic book. I never heard any youth express an interest in science or art. No one even talked politics. It was all idleness, and whenever I asked someone a question, no matter how simple, no matter how well the person spoke English, there was always a long pause before I got a reply, and I found these Pacific pauses maddening. And there was giggling but no humor - no wit. It was just foolery.

They say that if the Swiss had designed these mountains they'd be rather flatter.