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

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

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.

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.

Luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world.

Although I'm not fluent in sign language by a long way, I could have a fairly decent conversation.

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.