“He sat down with a dour face. “Ah, Shqipëria!” he said dropping his head. “Albania will never become Albania with Albanians in it!” He glanced at Jude. “Don’t ask.”

“We can’t all be Byronic adventurers like you Jude. Have you been wrestling with any brigands in the mountains there?” “No, but you’ve got to watch the drivers! Funny you should mention the poetic lord. He used to take his holidays down here, you know?” “What… picking up last-minute bargains with ‘EasyFrigate’?”

“You’re trying to help them… that’s a good thing. But you can’t always count on seeing their gratitude,” he said wanting to comfort her before he added a grain of salt. “You know what Tolstoy said… if you are unhappy with your life, you can change it in two ways… either improve the conditions you live in or improve your inner spiritual state. The first isn’t always possible but the second is… In the end, Alex, people need to go directly to the source of Grace for themselves.”

“My mum always said there’s a lot of presence in a doorway,” he added, staring into one of the eyes. A chill of air trickled down her spine, she could feel the eyes upon her, drawing her in, asking questions and tormenting her very being. “Really? How so?” asked Maggie, with interest. Brick turned his head and presented a puzzled expression. “Well, cause that’s where people come in”

“Unless there is a strong sense of place there is no travel writing, but it need not come from topographical description; dialogue can also convey a sense of place. Even so, I insist, the traveler invents the place. Feeling compelled to comment on my travel books, people say to me, "I went there"---China, India, the Pacific, Albania-- "and it wasn't like that." I say, "Because I am not you.”

“when a man's only assets are the brain in his head and thetongue in his mouth, he has to think carefully before he decidesto open that mouth and speak.”

“On his best walks, he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally, was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere. New York was the nowhere he had built around himself, and he realized that he has no intention of ever leaving it again.”