John Quotes

It is therefore not to be wondered at that Lincolns single term in the House of Representatives at Washington added practically nothing to his reputation.

There are two differing approaches and they have different virtues, the method of talent management and recruitment.

Okay, I'm in the tampon aisle, but I don't see it.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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 am certainly very pro-Europe.

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.

Everything a man writes about himself is instructive.

I think we're a long ways from really putting colonies of people out there who would live their whole lives out there in space. I don't see that happening for quite some time.

I think that it's good for us to be able to travel in space and do research in space, and I emphasize the research, because space travel to me is far more than just seeing how far we can go.

It was six men of Hindustan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind) That each by observation Might satisfy the mind.

Tis well to borrow from the good and the great; 'Tis wise to learn: 'tis God-like to create!

I asked of Echo 't other day (Whose words are few and often funny), What to a novice she could say Of courtship, love, and matrimony. Quoth Echo, plainly, "Matter-o'-money.

All things of beauty are not theirs alone who hold the fee; but unto him no less who can enjoy, than unto them who own, are sweetest uses given to posses.

But blast the man, with curses loud and deep, Whate'er the rascal's name, or age, or station, Who first invented, and went round advising, That artificial cut-off, Early Rising!

My estimate is that about 94,000 cancer fatalities for the future are being induced with each year of medical diagnostic X-rays (in US).

In truth, Edward Teller ran the Livermore Lab, but for public purposes he liked it better to be known as only an associate director

Believe me, nobody likes to loaf more than me.

I'd like to come back because I really miss doing situation comedy.

If you want to direct, you've got to work.

But I'm not as bad as Al Pacino - he doesn't even know what month it is half the time when he's working.

I'd bowled a lot, but I never really had proper lessons.

Theater people work by instinct. I've never known a really calculated artistic decision.