John Gimlette Quotes

Originally I wanted to be a diplomat, and by attrition I started giving up that idea.

In both places [Paraguay and Newfoundland] people rise despite everything - both are pretty tough environments.

I tend to prefer traveling in the Third World countries. Like Ethiopia. Or Eritrea.

There are 60 million of us [britains] crammed into an area the size of a state. So you don't have that feeling of remoteness at all, ever. And that's reflected in the way our media works, and so on.

I am certainly very pro-Europe.

The noise that we can expect in the future will only increase and we'll be wishing for rural Portugal or something like that.

I am sure you have met diplomats; they probably travel far less than you do. Okay, they get to know a place very intensely - sometimes only the capitol city.

I think one should express opinions and these books are relatively opinionated. They would be a bit dry without it.

I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.

Paraguayans have no Italian blood and are half Guarani [Indian] blood. And the Chileans call themselves "the English of South America," which actually couldn't be further from the truth.

Buenos Aires is my favorite city. I think it's fantastic - but is a troubled, sort of psychologically troubled city.

I was writing the Paraguay book, a Paragauyan told me that only five thousand people in Paraguay read.

Diplomacy was what I wanted to do. From really quite an early age and I think I had a false impression that diplomacy equals travel.

I have real fears for Cuba based on the South American experience. Where you have had such a stern regime, as Fidel's [Castro], there is no culture of politics.

I'd like to write fiction. Perhaps at some stage.

American travel writing is very healthy. I'm always flicking through the reviews and I see plenty of travel writing - and an impressive line up and continual demand.

India, to some extent, courses through my blood. My father was brought up there, and my grandfather served there, and so on. We have a very strong family affinity for the place.

It never stops me from saying what I want to say about Ethiopia, the fact that a tour company is paid for me to go there. Book reviewers don't pay for the books they review.

People my age and younger do think much more towards Europe. We have to fill the gap sometime - we can't think we are an empire any longer after all.

If you see our best seller list, most of them are books that are given as gifts. They are books you give to flatter somebody.

A lot of books are sold and given away as presents. But who actually reads and enjoy reading?

I have dipped into Ian McEwan and so on. I tend not to stick with one writer. But I dip in here and there.

I am always surprised when people do get upset. Perhaps its just the nutty people who write to newspapers who get upset.

Lawrence Millman is a favorite writer of mine. He did a travels on the trail of the Vikings.

I don't want to sell other people trips! I want to be there!

I would love to write a book that opens people's eyes to the more interesting side.

My parents don't think about Europe at all. The Continent is somewhere else. And they call it the Continent - to reflect, they are no real part of it.

Radio is very popular [in Britain], but it doesn't connect us in the same way. It seems to have this community function.

One does have to learn to travel with a degree of humility and that reflected in writing and personality.

I find the public reaction to writing - it's fascinating in this modern age. Of course people are able to interact with me and email me, and I get quite a few I suppose.

I was talking to my publisher in Britain and was told here we are - we are sixty million people and we reckon only four hundred thousand people in Britain really read.

I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.

This terrible frustration that we so often feel in the West in not being able to articulate and express ourselves.

I don't want to pay good money to hear ordinary people's lunatic views. Most of the people who phone in are [lunatics] - certainly in Britain.

Paraguay has had a U.S. supermarket boss as its ambassador for a while. He did the job well. He was there because he wanted to be there. Rather than the British diplomat who didn't want to be there.