The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.

The forest did not tolerate frailty of body or mind. Show your weakness, and it would consume you without hesitation.

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.

These days no one challenges us,' he said. 'And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.

Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.

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

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.