Occupation: Film Writer Birth: April 10, 1941
Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc….
He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone..
Albania in 1994 was the strangest place I've ever seen. It was like walking into the looking glass: falling apart, paranoid people, anarchy, no one f….
It might be said that a great unstated reason for travel is to find places that exemplify where one has been happiest. Looking for idealised versions….
Fogeydom is the last bastion of the bore and reminiscence is its anthem. It is futile to want the old days back, but that doesn't mean one should ign….
The monotony of staying in one place is the best thing for writing a novel. Having regular habits, a kind of security, but especially no big surprise….
A French traveler with a sore throat is a wonderful thing to behold, but it takes more than tonsillitis to prevent a Frenchman from boasting..
It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places..
The people of Hong Kong are criticized for only being interested in business, but it's the only thing they've been allowed to do..
The realization that he is white in a black country, and respected for it, is the turning point in the expatriate's career. He can either forget it, ….
One of the upsides of tourism is that people begin to take themselves a little more seriously (and think their) culture is worth something. So rather….
So far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison….
There are two worlds: the world of the tourist and the world of everyone else. Often they're side by side. But the tourist doesn't actually see how p….
You can't write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend..
I'm constantly running across people who have never heard of books I think they should read..
All politicians, even the most idealistic ones, are looking for money, sucking up to rich people..
In the best travel books the word alone is implied on every exciting page, as subtle and ineradicable as a watermark..
For years I felt that being respectable meant maintaining a sinister complacency, and the disreputable freedom I sought helped make me a writer..
A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it, and has a hard time….
It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is over certain of h….
In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed..