True adventure begins when everything goes wrong.

Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.

Travelers are always discoverers, especially those who travel by air. There are no signposts in the sky to show a man has passed that way before. There are no channels marked. The flier breaks each second into new uncharted seas.

I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

But I always liked side-paths, little dark back-alleys behind the main road- there one finds adventures and surprises, and precious metal in the dirt.