...[Cabeza de Vaca] ceased to be lost not by returning but by turning into something else.

A path is a prior interpretation of the best way to traverse a landscape.

The object we call a book is not the real book, but its potential, like a musical score or seed. It exists fully only in the act of being read; and its real home is inside the head of the reader, where the symphony resounds, the seed germinates. A book is a heart that only beats in the chest of another.

Walking . . . is how the body measures itself against the earth.

I'm a big fan of the vigor of civil society, political engagement, and public life in many parts of Latin America.

The poor have often been subversive just because they don't always believe their own depiction as brutes and loafers and leeches, and new economy is making lots more poor or recognize their fellowship with the insecurity of the poor, the portion of the population for whom the system does not work.

For me, being in a car or on an airplane is like being in limbo. It's this dead zone between two places. But to walk, you're some place that's already interesting. You're not just between places. Things are happening.