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.

The conversation, like many others I had with people on trains, derived an easy candour from the shared journey, the comfort of the dining car, and the certain knowledge that neither of us would see each other again.

Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the trip. And so the travel writer is doing the traveling for you.

A novel captures essence that is not possible in any other form.

They say that if the Swiss had designed these mountains they'd be rather flatter.

The greatest justification for travel is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace.

You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.