I like California because it still has the glamour and romanticism and exoticism of a very foreign place. It was the place that when I was young, I was raised on "I Love Lucy" and listening to the Grateful Dead and reading Jack Kerouac. They, to me, were all symbols of this very foreign sense of promise and movement. After all this time here I'm glad I still have it.
Pico Iyer...home lies in the things you carry with you everywhere and not the ones that tie you down.
Pico IyerLiterally, when you wake up at 9 o'clock in the morning in Havana you don't know where you'll be at noon. But it's a safe guess that you'll either be married, arrested, or in the midst of some incredible transaction where somebody is stealing your passport or paying you in Dominican pesos for it, or whatever. It's a wild place.
Pico IyerAs a member of the mainstream media for many years, I've learned just one thing: never to trust anything I read in the mainstream media - not because of any agenda or deliberate dissimulation, but simply because it's filtered and comes very often from someone whose judgment I might not trust in other circumstances.
Pico IyerAdventure today means finding one's way back to the silence and stillness of a thousand years ago.
Pico IyerQuitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesnโt agree with you, but because you donโt agree with something. Itโs not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in oneโs journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure youโre still moving in the direction of your dreams.
Pico Iyer