No one has ever described the place where I have just arrived: this is the emotion that makes me want to travel. It is one of the greatest reasons to go anywhere.

You can't want to be a writer. You have to be one.

There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.

Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.

If people are driving you around to look at animals, that's wonderful. That's educational, but it's not necessarily enlightening and you're not finding out much about yourself.

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.