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.

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.

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

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.

It’s impossible, ” he snapped. “Why?” “Because I’m Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent. I can’t be celibate. Everyone knows that.

Why is the truth usually not just un- but anti-interesting?

Do you not tire of eternity? Do you not wish to end your suffering?" "By leaping into the Void? Not really.

Hee that hath one hogge makes him fat, and hee that hath one son makes him a foole.

He who understands Archimedes and Apollonius will admire less the achievements of the foremost men of later times.

This religion and the Bible require of woman everything, and give her nothing. They ask her support and her love, and repay her with contempt and oppression.

Almost any trick can be improved by thinking through it slowlyThe first step is to not blink

Sin is not so sweet in the committing as it is heavy and bitter in the reckoning.

I have an electric Fender and a Telecaster. I have a Taylor and a Martin. I want to get more guitars for more sounds.

We had 600 ships, a 600 ship Navy under [Ronald] Reagan. We're down to 200 now [in 2016].