"My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, al..."
- Tahir Shah
"Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood. With such a book the impact isn't necessarily obvious at ..."
"There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest."
"I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains."
"In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life."
"Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi."
"As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end."
"The quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the vaguest hope of..."
"Previous journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead."
"I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas."