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

I never stay with people and I never look people up when I travel. I depend more on just chance meetings. The advantage is that people don't know who I am. I meet people casually and they're not doing me a big favor because I'm going to write something.

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

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

If people are driving you around to look at animals, that's wonderful. That's educational, but it's not necessarily enlightening and you're not finding out much about yourself.

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.

The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge for having been put on hold, or having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party's extension, being kept waiting all your working life - the homebound writer's irritants. But also being kept waiting is the human conditon.