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

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.

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.

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 United States has never been in a united state, it has never been a united state. It never will. Lines on screens and paper do not change that.

If loving comes easy, nothing else seems hard.

I really admire medical people. They have a great sense of humour, and they just have to get on with it.

After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and the life you have left.

All I am certain of right now is that I don't want to go anywhere, and that's not bad for someone who always used to run.

I like hot weather. I think it might be a bit better if England was a bit hotter.

What wine goes with Captain Crunch?

I want you to make love, not war, I know you've heard it before.

At the moment, I'm certainly not thinking 'never again', but neither am I thinking 'I can't wait to play that part again'. I'm somewhere in between.

You don't need money to look fabulous. There are so many awesome new designers, so many designers doing collections for mass retailers.