“Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart.”

“Stories are not like the real world; they aren't held back by what we know is false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel inside.”

“You have no idea. when you're a salesman here in Marrakech medima, lying is the first thing you learn. generation after generation, they pass it on. its the secret ingredient the foundationfor a salesman's success. lie well and you make a fortune every day. your wife purrs like a kitten, and your children ealk tall with pride.”

“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”

“To be selfless, you would give charity anonymously, walj softly on the earth, and look out for others-even total strangers-before you look out for yourself. For the Arab mind, the self is an obstacle, an impediment, in humanity's quest foe real progress.”

“Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead.”

“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.”