A little imagination goes a long way in Fes.

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

As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end.

Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.

Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.

One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.

The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.

It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.

Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.

The idea of my heart dancing with delight was far too good to pass up.

Even the Dead Hunger for Life.

Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about little puppies.

Health is the most critical thing in our life. With your health anything is possible, without it you can't do anything.

Fashions smile has given wit to dullness and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue.

I would say that I'm more moved by melody, even though I love to rap.

I'm proof that, even after having a baby, you can look better and sexier than ever!

Sincerity seems to be a problem today. I'd rather be true and hated than be false and fool people.

You don't become completely free by just avoiding being a slave; you also need to avoid becoming a master.

The first lady must be a leader. She must not be a follower.

I grew up on movie sets, getting to see storytelling happen up close.