All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting.

Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall.

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

An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed.

It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.

Now and then in travel, something unexpected happens that transforms the whole nature of the trip and stays with the traveler.

Tibet has a very proud people but it's culturally gone and overrun ever since the Chinese took over. It's like saving the rhino. When a species is endangered, it's gone.