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

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way

The biggest surprise was that a country like Angola, that has so much money, that produces so much oil, would be in such a mess and so difficult to travel in. Something is almost cursed in striking oil. It's like the lottery winner who ends up broke.

My house is a place I have spent many years improving to the point where I have no desire to leave it.

Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari; Africans don't.

Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.