Diplomacy was what I wanted to do. From really quite an early age and I think I had a false impression that diplomacy equals travel.

Originally I wanted to be a diplomat, and by attrition I started giving up that idea.

In both places [Paraguay and Newfoundland] people rise despite everything - both are pretty tough environments.

There are 60 million of us [britains] crammed into an area the size of a state. So you don't have that feeling of remoteness at all, ever. And that's reflected in the way our media works, and so on.

I tend to prefer traveling in the Third World countries. Like Ethiopia. Or Eritrea.

Paraguay has had a U.S. supermarket boss as its ambassador for a while. He did the job well. He was there because he wanted to be there. Rather than the British diplomat who didn't want to be there.

I don't want to pay good money to hear ordinary people's lunatic views. Most of the people who phone in are [lunatics] - certainly in Britain.

This terrible frustration that we so often feel in the West in not being able to articulate and express ourselves.

I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.

I was talking to my publisher in Britain and was told here we are - we are sixty million people and we reckon only four hundred thousand people in Britain really read.

I find the public reaction to writing - it's fascinating in this modern age. Of course people are able to interact with me and email me, and I get quite a few I suppose.

Rumi himself once said that counterfeit gold is only to be found because there is such a thing as real gold to be copied.

Research is creating new knowledge.

You are what you think. So just think big, believe big, act big, work big, give big, forgive big, laugh big, love big and live big.

I will always have my songs and I don't think I will ever dry-up

The more clearly we see sins horror, the more we shall treasure the cross.

As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what's going to happen.

All of us are embarrassed by some of what we are.

An entrepreneur isn't someone who owns a business, it's someone who makes things happen.

My mother's side of the family was in the production side of theatre. My grandfather, Jose Vega, was a general manager for Neil Simon shows on Broadway.