“Travel is no more than a relatively healthy form of narcotic, after all.”

“Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.”

“Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.”

“Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen.”

“The diseased, anyway, are more interesting than the healthy. The words of the diseased, even those who can manage only a murmur, carry more weight than those of the healthy. Then, too, all healthy people will in the future know disease. That sense of time, ah, the diseased man’s sense of time, what treasure hidden in a desert cave. Then, too the diseased truly bite, whereas the healthy pretend to bite but really only snap at the air. Then, too, then, too, then, too.”

“Poetry is no more a narcotic than a stimulant; it is a universal bittersweet mixture for all possible household emergencies and its action varies accordingly as it is taken in a wineglass or a tablespoon, inhaled, gargled or rubbed on the chest by hard fingers covered with rings.”