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

Basically, what you find out is the limits of your patience and your strength and your capacity to adapt. You find that out in travel and being alone and being tested. So that's a great thing.

A gun show is about like-minded people who feel as if everything has been taken away from them - jobs, money, pride.

My greatest inspiration is memory.

Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life.

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

There's a lot of sensuality that I associate with travel. And that's romance.