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" You leave the States, and you see people have bigger problems than you, much worse problems than you. "

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" A travel book is a book that puts you in the shoes of the traveler, and it's usually a book about having a very bad time; having a miserable time, even better. "

" My record was so bad that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing. "

" Japan, Germany, and India seem to me to have serious writers, readers, and book buyers, but the Netherlands has struck me as the most robust literary culture in the world. "

" There are places that I've always wanted to go. First I went to Africa, and when I was there I realized there were places in Africa I really to wanted to visit: The Congo, West Africa, Mombassa. I wanted to see the deep, dark, outlandish places. "

" A place that doesn't welcome tourists, that's really difficult and off the map, is a place I want to see. "

" People talk about the pain of writing, but very few people talk about the pleasure and satisfaction. "

" The people of Hong Kong are criticized for only being interested in business, but it's the only thing they've been allowed to do. "

" The people I've known who've done great things of that type - you know, building hospitals, running schools - are very humble people. They give their lives to the project. "

" The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity. "

" I grew up in an era of thinking of travel as escape. The idea that you could conceivably have a new life, go somewhere, fall in love, have little children under the palm trees. "

" Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions. "

" When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books. "

" Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace. "

" Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art. "

" When I began to make some money, I really wanted to have a home. "

" When I left Africa in 1966 it seemed to me to be a place that was developing, going in a particular direction, and I don't think that is the case now. And it's a place where people still kid themselves - you know, in a few years this will happen or that will happen. Well, it's not going to happen. It's never going to happen. "

" Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter. "

" Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies. "

" Nyasaland was the perfect country for a volunteer. It was friendly and destitute; it was small and out-of-the-way. It had all of Africa's problems - poverty, ignorance, disease. "

" What strikes me about high-school reunions is the realization that these are people one has known one's whole life. "

" A novel captures essence that is not possible in any other form. "

" To me, writing is a considered act. It's something which is a great labor of thought and consideration. "

" The Trans-Siberian Express is like a cruise across an oceanic landscape. I've done it three times. "

" I should start by saying that traveling in the States is a bit like traveling in Asia. You need it, it helps to have an introduction - that there is a certain network. "

" Because of my capacity for listening to strangers' tales, or the details of their lives, my patience with their food and their crotchets, my curiosity that borders on nosiness, I am told that anyone traveling with me experiences an unbelievable tedium, and this is why I choose to travel alone. "

" When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there. "

" I'm constantly running across people who have never heard of books I think they should read. "

" The amount of hassle involved in travel can be overwhelming. "

" The idea of traveling in Africa for me is based on going by road or train or bus or whatever and crossing borders. You can't travel easily or at all through some countries. "

" An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed. "