Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life

You can't write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend.

Airplanes have dulled and desensitized us; we are encumbered, like lovers in a suit of armor.

Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life

You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.

My house is a place I have spent many years improving to the point where I have no desire to leave it.

A national crisis, a political convulsion, is an opportunity, a gift to the traveler. Nothing is more revealing of a place to a stranger than trouble. Even if a crisis is incomprehensible, as it usually is, it lends drama to the day and transforms the traveler into an eye witness.