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.

Although I'm not fluent in sign language by a long way, I could have a fairly decent conversation.

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.

My love for traveling to islands amounts to a pathological condition known as nesomania, an obsession with islands. This craze seems reasonable to me, because islands are small self-contained worlds that can help us understand larger ones.

Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.

When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there.

Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.