Wisdom worth sharing, words worth remembering.
Could I say that the reason that I am here today you know from the mouth of the State Department itself is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independence of the colonial peoples of Africa.
I'm obsessed with Nicholas Sparks. I've literally read every single book because every time I travel at the airport I always buy a new Nicholas Sparks book.
Travel books are by and large boring. They lodge uncomfortably between fact fiction and autobiography.
Don Quixote's 'Delusions' is an excellent read – far better than my own forthcoming travel book 'Walking Backwards Across Tuscany.'
Just to travel is rather boring but to travel with a purpose is educational and exciting.
Occasionally I find a travel book that is both illuminating and entertaining where vivid writing and research replace self-indulgence and sloppy prose.
I am traveling less in order to be able to write more. I select my travel destinations according to their degree of usefulness to my work.
A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere travels on the ground sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it and has a hard time and then comes back and writes about it. It's not about inventing.
Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels – and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in.
The amount of hassle involved in travel can be overwhelming.
I've always traveled as a kid my parents moved me around a different place in Germany every four years. But I got the travel bug when I was a kid living in different countries.
