The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.

For me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news -- as you learn how much more of it's been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that is my home

As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end.

Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.

Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.

A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.

One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.

It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.

The idea of my heart dancing with delight was far too good to pass up.

Love is a better master than duty.

Sometimes", said Miss Phillips, "the thing you dread doing the very thing you should do, just so you can stop thinking about it.

In this case, I realize that, unlike when I was 22 years old, I realize now that football will not go on forever, it is a small part of your life.

You sign an agreement; you make a contract, you live up to it. You never get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate. You got a right to say yay or nay.

Let's put it this way - I photograph what interests me all the time. I live with the pictures to see what that thing looks like photographed. I'm saying the same thing; I'm not changing it.

My childhood best friend is an anesthesiologist. It's the least amount of human interaction for a doctor. I don't think you can get that burned out on it.

Great leaders must be able to realize when something isn’t working-no matter how hard they’ve worked to make it succeed.

Mars and Venus are at it again. This time, Hephaestus is standing by with a private detective, a photographer, and a lawyer.

Sometimes God teaches us how to solve our problems. Sometimes God teaches us how to face our problems

Annabeth laced her fingers through his. In the light of his bronze sword, her face was beautiful. 'We're together,' she reminded him. 'We'll get through this.