I am sure you have met diplomats; they probably travel far less than you do. Okay, they get to know a place very intensely - sometimes only the capitol city.

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.

Brought up to respect the conventions, love had to end in marriage. I'm afraid it did.

The more we rehearse the worse we become.”― Usman Ali, The Guilt

don't think that warriors fit your standards

There is an answer, some day we will know And you will ask her, why she had to go We live and die, we laugh and we cry You must take away the pain Before you can begin to live again

The best advice I got throughout my career was understanding what my current managers' pains and challenges are - it's not always just about hitting the number.

The night has a thousand eyes.

Be strong then, and enter into your own body; there you have a solid place for your feet.

That's what you do all the hard work for, to play in situations that put your body through gruelling times. If you're not up to it, pull out.

Each moment in time we have it all, even when we think we don't.

What I mean by art is the human act of doing something that connects us to someone else