I don't want to sell other people trips! I want to be there!

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.

You rob yourself of reaching your maximum potential and the best chance of success when you try to succeed alone.

If one by one we counted people outFor the least sin, it wouldn't take us longTo get so we had no one left to live with.For to be social is to be forgiving.

It's easy to diet or get off a diet when you've got a juicy role to play.

A very little key will open a very heavy door.

Adolescence is a twentieth-century invention most parents approach with dread and look back on with the relief of survivors.

When two elements combine and form more than one compound, the masses of one element that react with a fixed mass of the other are in the ratio of small whole numbers.

Good policy makes good politics and what I've done has been good politics.

I made 'Going Greek', which was a very sort of crappy fraternity comedy that I did back in 2000.

Martin Williams persistently gets at essences, and that is why he has contributed so much to the very small body of authentic jazz criticism.

If You can play Your stuff in a pub, then You´re a good band.