An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed.

Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.

There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.

The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.

You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.

You can't save the rhinos and you can't preserve a culture. I'm very pessimistic. Once it's gone, it's over.

All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.

Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.

Railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly level no matter what the landscape, improving your mood with speed, and never upsetting your drink.

Tibet has a very proud people but it's culturally gone and overrun ever since the Chinese took over. It's like saving the rhino. When a species is endangered, it's gone.

Anything, anything to stop drowning in this dull, trivial and cowardly existence.

Freddie Green has been my right arm for thirty years. And if he leaves the band one day, I'll probably leave with him.

Until you've reached that point where you've perfected your lower nature and cleansed your emotional being, jnana yoga will have to wait.

There is no normality in life.

I see myself as Rhoda, not Mary Tyler Moore.

We all live in fear of getting blocked no matter what kind of art we're trying to do. It happens all the time, but I prefer to think of it as a bad day.

I will never reach perfection.

And she looked at me like she couldn't believe I knew she loved Anne Rice. I guess he didn't know how much she talked or how much I listened.

Worrying about next, tomorrow cripples our ability to think, act and exercise faith in the present and the present only is ours.

The incentive to ambition is the love of power.