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

Basically, what you find out is the limits of your patience and your strength and your capacity to adapt. You find that out in travel and being alone and being tested. So that's a great thing.

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

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

Travel is about failure or overcoming obstacles, overcoming failures. When a traveler is having lots of good luck, that is not a happy book. That's a book you say, well, I don't need that. I want a life lesson. I want to find out - I want a journey that reflects my life.

To a lot of Africans, seeing an animal is a something of a rarity. So it's a paradox of this sort of parallel life. A safari is an expensive experience and it's adjacent to a place where people are having a very tough time.

travel [is] flight and pursuit in equal parts.