one of the advantages of cycling is that it automatically prevents a journey from becoming an Expedition.

On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as presents and a few days later I decided to cycle to India.

hatred, however apparently justifiable, excusable or inevitable, always damages the hater.

Buying a bicycle is a momentous event, akin to marriage: you are acquiring a partner.

Sunnis consider Shias a pack of unwholesome fanatics and Shias consider Sunnis a gang of lukewarm no-goods - there's nothing like religion for spreading brotherly love!

... strong bonds are forged in high emotional temperatures.

poverty denotes a lack of necessities and simplicity a lack of needs.

... I know a number of Western children who would benefit greatly if only someone were primitive enough to inhibit the development of their personalities.

The Irish have a flair for wringing from death the last drop of emotion and they do not quite understand those who react otherwise.

Is this something else our age does - on the one hand make communication easier than ever before, while on the other hand widening the gulf between those who are 'developed' and those who are not?

Undoubtedly the Afghans must be, by our standards, the best-looking people in the world. They have everything; height, proportions, carriage, features and complexion.

One does not see ‘what is there’ and sees ‘what is not there’, that is called moha (illusory vision).

None should say: ‘I can trust, ’ or ‘I cannot trust’ until he is master of the option, of trusting or not trusting.

He could not shake the feeling - reportedly common among ghosts - that it was not he but those he haunted whose lives were devoid of matter, sense, future.

They said 'ski', but they heard 'vodka'!

It seems to be that southern Europeans are just more intimate socially, whereas I like a lot of personal space - like, a mile from the nearest person is fine for me.

If there is Katrina Kaif in any film, the movie is a hit

I might not be in a relationship anymore, but I don't believe that people should have to lie to themselves just to make somebody else feel good.

The different parts of the automobile like the ignition switch, the various buttons, the steering wheel - the interfaces between the driver and the machine - is our spirit or heart.

Are you trying to tell all of us we have a bad signal-to-noise ratio?

I was self-conscious of what I would call my "tree-trunk legs" because they are very muscular... but now I've learned to love them.