My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.

The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after two minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless.

Usually, there is nothing more pleasing that returning to a place where you have endured hardship.

It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.

The backstreet cafe in Casablanca was for me a place of mystery, a place with a soul, a place with danger. There was a sense that the safety nets had been cut away, that each citizen walked upon the high wire of this, the real world. I longed not merely to travel through it, but to live in such a city.

There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.