Interstate highways dull the reality of place and distance almost as effectively as jetliners do: I loathe their scary monotony.

The Falklands held a mirror up to our own islands, and it reflected, in brilliantly sharp focus, all our injured belittlement, our sense of being beleaguered, neglected and misunderstood.

Travel. It was an intransitive verb. It didn't involve any destinations. It was going to the going's sake, to be anywhere but where you were, with motion itself as the only object.

The mythical America?that marvellous, heroic, sentimental landwas an object of faith. It challenged you to make the believer's leap over the rude facts at your feet.

In an underdeveloped country don't drink the water. In a developed country don't breathe the air.

Lincoln, steeped in the Bible and Shakespeare, set an impossibly high bar for presidential prose.

Critics? Don't talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don't.

Seattle was built out on pilings over the sea, and at high tide the whole city seemed to come afloat like a ship lifting free from a mud berth and swaying in its chains.

Good travel books are novels at heart.

In novels and autobiographies, the first positive move that the immigrant makes towards assimilation is to buy himself a suit of city clothes.

Every White House has had its intellectuals, but very few presidents have been intellectuals themselves - Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, the list more or less stops there.

Don't matter how much money you got, there's only two kinds of people: there's saved people and there's lost people.

With Woods arms wrapped around me and the beat of his heart pressed against my chest, I knew he would hold me steady. If I ever fell, I’d have him to catch me.

Beware of economists who hide assumptions.

rule number one for all American women: You are to be seen and felt, but not heard. Listen and do as you are told and everything will be all right.

I'm never there enough to really keep up with what's going on in the Australian film industry. I just try and be part of it as much as I can.

Go on and love yourself, cause everything's gonna be alright.

I like people's attitudes more than fashion or beauty or whatever it is.

There are five top superstars in golf, 20 great stars, and 30 good ones. The rest should go and get jobs.

Distance not only gives nostalgia, but perspective, and maybe objectivity.

where the world ends is where you must begin