Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.

A person who is tired of London is not necessarily tired of life; it might be that he just can’t find a parking place.

The biggest surprise was that a country like Angola, that has so much money, that produces so much oil, would be in such a mess and so difficult to travel in. Something is almost cursed in striking oil. It's like the lottery winner who ends up broke.

There are two worlds: the world of the tourist and the world of everyone else. Often they're side by side. But the tourist doesn't actually see how people live.

There's a lot of sensuality that I associate with travel. And that's romance.

One of the cardinal principles of Buddhism, the principle of neglect.

I think that love isn't what you think it is when you're in your twenties or even thirties.