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.

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.

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

Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent.

By the time, another Disappointment reaches me ..... I'll buried!

You can tell how boring a person is by the lack of fear in their eyes when someone is flipping through photos on their phone.

I knew I could not cope with the future unless I was able to rediscover the past.

One thing leads to another? Not always. Sometimes one thing leads to the same thing. Ask an addict.

The zest of life lies in right doing, not in the garnered harvest.

I would sit in at a jazz brunch [at sweet Basil] with Eddie Chamblee, who was a great tenor player. Really a kind man. The whole band was great.

Man appoints, and God disappoints.

And it’s a sad song, Todd, but it’s also a promise. I’ll never deceive you and I’ll never leave you and I promise you this so you can one day promise it to others and know that it’s true.

I learned not to worry so much about the outcome, but to concentrate on the step I was on and to try to do it as perfectly as I could when I was doing it.