It's not fashionable but I like to spit out of the window of a moving train.

Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari; Africans don't.

It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.

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.

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

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

Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.