When I write about my childhood I think, oh my God, how did I ever get from there to here? Not that any great thing has happened to me. But I felt so tiny, so lost.

Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.

There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.

The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.

You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.

You can't save the rhinos and you can't preserve a culture. I'm very pessimistic. Once it's gone, it's over.

All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.

Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.

Railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly level no matter what the landscape, improving your mood with speed, and never upsetting your drink.

Tibet has a very proud people but it's culturally gone and overrun ever since the Chinese took over. It's like saving the rhino. When a species is endangered, it's gone.

When we think of success, we often associate those who are successful with the things they do rather than the things they don’t, and focus is found in the latter.

People who do not have a price tag attached to them are priceless.

I was too young to know how to love her.

Through discipline comes freedom.

Caesar salad is one of my favourite lunch foods. You can shovel it in and talk at the same time.

It's exciting to do something you're writing. And it's also a lot easier to memorize because you wrote it.

MBA programs are underwritten by large companies and they succeed at producing future employees of large companies. In that regard, they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

How about slipping out of those wet things and into a dry Martini?

Far above the golden clouds, the darkness vibrates. The earth is blue. And everything about it is a love song. Everything about it.

He who does not live in the way of his beliefs starts to believe in the way he lives.