Travelogue Quotes

Perhaps there is to be found in Pastrana the key to something which happens in Spain more frequently than is necessary. Past splendor overwhelms and in the end exhausts the people's will; and without force of will, as can be seen in so many cases, by being exclusively occupied with the contemplation of the glories of the past, they leave current problems unsolved. When the belly is empty and the mind filled with golden memories, the golden memories continually retreat and at last, though no one goes so far as to admit it, there is even doubt whether they ever existed and there is nothing left of them but a benevolent and useless cultural residue.

Clearly it's not all that pacific on the Pacific Ocean

This (San Francisco) is the most beautiful city in America, Probably because it looks nothing like America

A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.

Rule #1 of Traveling-Don't even think of answering questions that contain the word "plan"?

...it was just a version of Rimbaud in Harar: the exile, a selfish beast with modest fantasies of power, secretly enjoying a life of beer drinking and scribbling and occasional mythomania in a nice climate where there were no interruptions, such as unwelcome letters or faxes or cell phones. It was an eccentric ideal, life lived off the map.¨

The ride back to Kathmandu was comfortable and relaxing. There were more overturned trucks (the gas-powered ones seem to tip the most often, I’m surprised there weren’t more explosions), goats being herded across the highway by ancient women, children playing games in traffic, private cars and buses alike pulling over in the most inconvenient places for a picnic or public bath, and best of all the suicidal overtaking maneuvers (or what we would call ‘passing’) by our bus and others while going downhill at incredible speeds or around hairpin turns uphill with absolutely no power left to actually get around the other vehicle.

All our ancestors were murdered, murderers, complicit to murder, or combating murder.

A Spaniard and a Pole worked in the barbershop where we got our hair cut. An Italian shined our shoes. A Croat washed our car. This was America.

I, sometimes, fear that probably I'll just keep changing cities, and may be someday I'll also travel the world, but never find another soul who thinks exactly the way I do.