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

When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books.

It is the simplest fact of Indian life: there are too many Indians.

In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed.

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

Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life.

Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It's also about mutual help, not about exploitation.