Tahir Shah Quotes - Page 2

I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.

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. With such a book the impact isn't necessarily obvious at first...but the more you read it and re-read it, and live with it, and travel with it, the more it speaks to you, and the more you realize that you cannot live without that book. It's then that the wisdom hidden inside, the seed, is passed on.

A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.

Experience has taught me the power of trophies. You may have every knick-knack and useless contraption ever devised, but while they weigh you down, a simple trophy can go a long, long way.

In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.

Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It's inside us al, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purged. But it's in there, deep inside, a spark waiting to set a touch-paper alight.

Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.

Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It's just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends.

Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.

The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence.

Stories are a communal currency of humanity.

In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm.

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.

During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide.

There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.

In Morocco," said Osman, "word spreads like a fire tearing through the depths of Hell.

Believe, and what was impossible becomes possible what at first was hidden becomes visible.

My journey to the land of the Shuar tribe had taught me the importance of practical gifts.

The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.

Through a strange kind of geographic arrogance, Europeans like to think that the world was a silent, dark, unknown place until they trooped out and discovered it.

As far as Samson was concerned I was just another foreigner in pursuit of a lunatic quest.

Normally I would have been the first to go in search of cannibal monks, particularly as I had heard of a similar tradition at a nunnery in the Philippines. It's the sort of quest I can't resist.

We had the kind of conversations that only great friends can ever share. They were touched with magic.

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.

Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.

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

But in Africa bureaucrats are usually too proud to accept a bribe, something I admire when I'm not the one being arrested.

There's nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.

There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.

These days no one challenges us,' he said. 'And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.

My father looked on in disbelief, overwhelmed that his son had been taught to eat glass and relish it.

The only thing they valued higher than ammunition were Man United footballs.

Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.

In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.

My father never told us how the stories worked. He didn't reveal the layers, the nuggets of information, the fragments of truth and fantasy. He didn't need to -- because, given the right conditions, the stories activated, sowing themselves.

As the head of an expedition, you can't pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way.

Only a man who has his health, a full stomach and wears clean clothes would ever entertain the notion of tracking down the greatest lost city on Earth.

Visit Cape Town and history is never far from your grasp. It lingers in the air, a scent on the breezy, an explanation of circumstance that shaped the Rainbow People. Stroll around the old downtown and it's impossible not to be affected by the trials and tribulations of the struggle. But, in many ways, it is the sense of triumph in the face of such adversity that makes the experience all the more poignant.

Settling into a new country is like getting used to a new pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing those shoes is like wearing no shoes at all. The more scuffed they get, the more you love them and the more you can't imagine life without them.

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

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

There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.

Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster.

I was becoming addicted to Bombay. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realise my good fortune and would never again forget it.

The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after tow minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless.

The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it.

I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains.

In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough.

The ability to tell a good route from a terrible one is a valuable skill when leading an expedition. Unfortunately for us all, it was a skill I did not possess.

The ants are bad" The Bear"the ants?"Tahir"Do not be fooled. They look very small, so harm you don't think of then at all. Then years. Then one day you wake up, and your home has fallen down." Osman.

Bombay is a city where gossip is treated as a commodity.

Because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we all have become lazy. Lazy people are like cancer. They spread. Before you know it, the entire country is destroyed.

A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation

The first few hours in the cell were quite stimulating. I'd never been in a prison cell before and was quite enjoying the experience.

In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.

The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.

My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.

Time spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal.

The situation was different in the jungle. Every inch of ground had to be earned, and was done so through much exertion with the blade.