When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there.

The difference between travel writing as fiction is the difference between recording what the eye sees and discovering what the imagination knows. Fiction is pure joy - how sad that I could not reinvent the trip as fiction.

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

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.

I think most serious and omnivorous readers are alike- intense in their dedication to the word, quiet-minded, but relieved and eagerly talkative when they meet other readers and kindred spirits.

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

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.