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

Pain does not create a long-lasting memory, but the memory of luxury exerts itself for ever.

I'm a tourist, a glorified tourist. I'm not doing it to have a good time or to lie in the sun.

Unless there is a strong sense of place there is no travel writing, but it need not come from topographical description; dialogue can also convey a sense of place. Even so, I insist, the traveler invents the place. Feeling compelled to comment on my travel books, people say to me, "I went there"---China, India, the Pacific, Albania-- "and it wasn't like that." I say, "Because I am not you.

I never stay with people and I never look people up when I travel. I depend more on just chance meetings. The advantage is that people don't know who I am. I meet people casually and they're not doing me a big favor because I'm going to write something.

I hate vacations. I hate them. I have no fun on them. I get nothing done. People sit and relax, but I don't want to relax. I want to see something.

It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is over certain of his plot.