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

Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.

I'm constantly running across people who have never heard of books I think they should read.

Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.

People talk about the pain of writing, but very few people talk about the pleasure and satisfaction.

One of the upsides of tourism is that people begin to take themselves a little more seriously (and think their) culture is worth something. So rather than disparaging the local culture, they vitalize it.

So far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.