Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.

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

The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.

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

Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.

Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with existence or the exotic. It is almost always an inner experience.

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.