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

The United States is a world unto itself. We have mountains, we have deserts, we have a river that equals the Yangtze River, that equals the Nile. We have the greatest cities in the world - among the greatest cities in the world. We have a large population. We have challenges. We have an indigenous population.

Airplanes have dulled and desensitized us; we are encumbered, like lovers in a suit of armor.

One of the upsides of tourism is that people begin to take themselves a little more seriously (and think their) culture is worth something. So rather than disparaging the local culture, they vitalize it.

There has to be a measure of difficulty or problem-solving in travel for it to be worthwhile.

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

Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.