Delay and dirt are the realities of the most rewarding travel.

All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting.

Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life

Albania in 1994 was the strangest place I've ever seen. It was like walking into the looking glass: falling apart, paranoid people, anarchy, no one farming, full of thieves. It was beyond any Third World country. They were living in their own private nightmare.

When you travel you realize how small you are. You need to be humble. You can't be a big, brash American. You think you have problems. You leave the States and you see people have bigger problems than you, much worse problems than you. They have nothing to eat, they have no water, they have no shelter, they have a terrible government. So you realize we complain about the government, we complain about food, whatever it is, and go somewhere else and you think, "Now I realize," you say, "Why people want to come to America."

He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone.

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.