A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.

One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.

The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.

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.

Through bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.

Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.

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