It was an awkward moment. We were burning down our host's house, a situation which any guest seeks to avoid.

A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you.

Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.

Most journeys have a clear beginning, but on some the ending is less well-defined. The question is, at what point do you bite your lip and head for home?

I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.

Usually, there is nothing more pleasing that returning to a place where you have endured hardship.

In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm.

There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.

The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together.

When I am about to embark on a difficult journey, I comfort myself by reading the accounts of the great nineteenth-century travellers, men like Stanley, Burton, Speke, Burckhardt and Barth.

[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.

And the waitress is practicing politicsAs the businessmen slowly get stonedYes, they're sharing a drink they call lonelinessBut its better than drinkin' alone

People are so annoying. All my pianists look exactly like poets

Men love it. They have a sense of humor, whereas a lot of women are threatened or just don't get it.

I did graduate with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1948.

Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms.

Oh I do want that thing, that oneness of movement that will catch the thing up into one movement and sing - harmony of life.

The soul, in its power, is present in some way in the entire universe, because it apprehends substances which are not included in the body in which it lives, although they are related to it.

The courage to try something new makes me proud.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

I don't think you ever stop giving. I really don't. I think it's an on-going process. And it's not just about being able to write a check. It's being able to touch somebody's life.