Selected travel quotes

1. If one had but a single glance to give the world, one should gaze on Istanbul.

2. In the end, all journeys are spiritual. So go off the main road. Be givers of hospitality and gracious takers of it too. Accept the serendipitous moments of life because, when all is said and done, you may find out that they were not serendipitous at all. And know that faith is as real as bread broken among friends. What you believe will take you far on your journey. If you search carefully, you will find good food all along the way.

3. I know no place at which an Englishman may drop down suddenly among a pleasanter circle of acquaintance, or find himself with a more clever set of men, than he can do at Boston.

4. If you cross the Atlantic with an American lady you invariably fall in love with her before the journey is over. Travel with the same woman in a railway car for twelve hours, and you will have written her down in your own mind in quite other language than that of love.

5. Speaking of New York as a traveller I have two faults to find with it. In the first place there is nothing to see; and in the second place there is no mode of getting about to see anything.

6. Taken altogether, Washington as a city is most unsatisfactory, and falls more grievously short of the thing attempted than any other of the great undertakings of which I have seen anything in the United States.

7. No friend to Love like a long voyage at sea.

8. Even if you're not enjoying the flight, it's futile to threaten to get out and walk.

9. Where would I be without my sense of direction.

10. Spring is noticed, if at all By people sitting in railway trains.

11. When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.

12. The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff.

13. The highway is alive tonight But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light With the ghost of old Tom Joad.

14. I haven't had that good a time in ages. Since September 11, really. I just felt so happy, it was like the sun came out of the clouds for me. I love Italy.

15. The cities of Italy are now deluged with droves of these creatures [tour groups], for they never separate, and you see them, forty in number, pouring along a street with their director - now in front, now at the rear, circling them like a sheep dog - and really the process is as like herding as may be.

16. I took an estimated two thousand years of high school French, and when I finally got to France, I discovered that I didn't know one single phrase that was actually useful in a real-life French situation.

17. I am a citizen of the world, known to all and to all a stranger.

18. Commuter - one who spends his life In riding to and from his wife; A man who shaves and takes a train And then rides back to shave again.

19. Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

20. Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone?

21. When you look like your passport photo, it's time to go home.

22. Don't order one for the road, because the road is already laid out.

23. Rome is a very loony city in every respect. One needs but spend an hour or two there to realize that Fellini makes documentaries.

24. The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret.

25. I have just returned from Boston. It is the only sane thing to do if you find yourself up there.

26. I think there is some methodology in my travels.

27. Well, you know, I think the American people are sacrificing now. I think they're waiting in airport lines longer than they've ever had before.

28. Right in the Hart of the Africn Jungel a small wite man lives. Now there is one xtrordenry fackt about him that he is the frind of all animals.

29. Lovely the woods, waters, meadows, combes, vales, All the air things wear that build this world of Wales.

30. I pray you, magnificent Sir, do not trouble yourself to return to us, but await our coming to you.

31. Major cities are divided into two parts; the bits that are in the guidebook and the bits that aren't. If you don't take a guidebook, you'll see a different city.

32. When traveling with someone, take large does of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee.

33. Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air; And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair; And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome; But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.

34. I remember, particularly, a trip to Bosnia where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.

35. All of life is a foreign country.

36. Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?

37. In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers.

38. I like the evening in India, the one magic moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world, and the hush descends, and ten thousand civil servants drift homeward on a river of bicycles, brooding on the Lord Krishna and the cost of living.

39. I can't help but notice that everytime I fly somewhere, other people's planes fall out of the sky.

40. It's not so bad to live out of a suitcase. It's a really beautiful life.

41. Oh, give me again the rover's life--the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Let me feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into thy saddle once more. I am sick of these terra firma toils and cares; sick of the dust and reek of towns. Let me hear the clatter of hailstones on icebergs, and not the dull tramp of these plodders, plodding their dull way from their cradles to their graves. Let me snuff thee up, sea-breeze! and whinny in thy spray. Forbid it, sea-gods! intercede for me with Neptune, O sweet Amphitrite, that no dull clod may fall on my coffin! Be mine the tomb that swallowed up Pharaoh and all his hosts; let me lie down with Drake, where he sleeps in the sea.

42. We landed one of those corkscrew landings and ran out because they said there might be sniper fire. I don't remember anyone offering me tea on the tarmac when that was happening.

43. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.... There was no greeting ceremony and we were basically told to run to our cars. That is what happened.

44. As for what you say or hint of 'local' conditions: I knew of them. I don't think they have much changed (even for the worse). I used to hear them discussed by my mother; and have ever since taken a special interest in that part of the world. The treatment of colour nearly always horrifies anyone going out from Britain, & not only in South Africa. Unfort[unately], not many retain that generous sentiment for long.

45. [on pre-EU British passports] You used them to shove aside officials. 'Out of my way, Johnny-foreigner! Reason for visit? Imperialism!'

46. The mad road, lonely, leading around the bend into the openings of space towards the horizon Wasatch snows promised us in the vision of the West, spine heights at the world's end, coast of blue Pacific starry night - nobone halfbanana moons sloping in the tangled night sky, the torments of great formations in mist, the huddled invisible insect in the car racing onwards, illuminate. - The raw cut, the drag, the butte, the star, the draw, the sunflower in the grass - orangebutted west lands of Arcadia, forlorn sands of the isolate earth, dewy exposures to infinity in black space, home of the rattlesnake and the gopher the level of the world, low and flat: the charging restless mute unvoiced road keening in a seizure of tarpaulin power into the route.

47. There'd been the biggest motorcade from the airport. Hot. Wild. Like Mexico and Vienna. The sun was so strong in our faces. I couldn't put on sunglasses... Then we saw this tunnel ahead, I thought it would be cool in the tunnel, I thought if you were on the left the sun wouldn't get into your eyes...

48. In 1948 I addressed some students at Washington and Lee University, and in the question-answer period one young man observed with asperity, 'But it's easy for you to write. You've traveled.'

49. On Tuesday the freighter steamed through the Straits of Gibraltar and for five days plowed eastward through the Mediterranean, past islands and peninsulas rich in history, so that on Saturday night the steward advised Dr. Cullinane, 'If you wish an early sight of the Holy Land you must be up at dawn.'

50. Killer on the road His brain is squirming like a toad.

51. The Mongols would have just turned around and left if they'd seen the public bathrooms here.

52. With a long slow stride, limping a little from his blistered feet, Bud walked down Broadway, past empty lots where tin cans glittered among grass and sumach bushes and ragweed, between ranks of billboards and Bull Durham signs, past shanties and abandoned squatters' shacks, past gulches heaped with wheelscarred rubbishpiles where dumpcarts were dumping ashes and clinkers, past knobs of gray outcrop where steamdrills continually tapped and nibbled, past excavations out of which wagons full of rock and clay toiled up plank roads to the street, until he was walking on new sidewalks along a row of yellow brick apartment houses, looking in the windows of grocery stores, Chinese laundries, lunchrooms, flower and vegetable shops, tailors', delicatessens. (pp. 23-24)

53. He was the rarest musician that his age did behold; having travelled beyond the seas, and compounded English with foreign skill in that faculty.

54. The world's a fine place for those who go out to take it; there's lots of unknown stuff' in it yet. I'll fill your lap, my pretty, so full of treasures that you shan't know yourself. A man wasn't meant to sit at home...

55. I don't have a sense of sanctuary. I don't have a place where I think I can go. I once went to the famous Kyoto temple with the Zen garden, the gravel, the little mounds and it's, you know, it's been pictured over and over and over again. And what they don't tell you is that this little acre or some acre of serenity is surrounded by millions of people taking pictures. So it sounds like a storm of mosquitoes constantly. And it never stops. And there's no serenity. And so not even in Japan can I find sanctuary.

56. Under the opening eyelids of the morn, We drove afield; and both together heard What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.

57. Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world.

58. At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue: Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

59. I'm back from Crete, a gorgeous golden brown. If you could see me I'm sure you would want to dance around me.

60. And Kay wrote to me from Bielefeld, where he or she is stationed. He or she or uncommited, I don't know.

61. I suppose everything about one's self is recontextualised in an alien environment.

62. I found America the friendliest, most forgiving, and most generous nation I had ever visited. We South Americans tend to think of things in terms of convenience, whereas people in the United States approach things ethically. This - amateur Protestant that I am - I admired above all. It even helped me overlook skyscrapers, paper bags, television, plastics, and the unholy jungle of gadgets.

63. I had been six years at sea, but had only seen Melbourne and Sydney, very good places, charming places in their way - but Bankok!

64. Oh, I'm in love With Egypt.

65. Well we think you'd better wake up capt'n There's something happen'n up ahead We've never seen anything like it We've never seen anything like it before.

66. Ten minutes later I was in an enormous taxi-cab, an air-conditioned one, hired for the day for fifty dollars; it seems an awful lot, I know, but money's worth awfully little over there, you'd be surprised. It's because there's so much of it, you see.

67. A true traveller has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving.

68. There was one who was famed for the number of things He forgot when he entered the ship: His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings, And the clothes he had bought for the trip. He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed, With his name painted clearly on each: But, since he omitted to mention the fact, They were all left behind on the beach.

69. There is a wonderful old Chinese proverb that I love, 'A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving'. I think about my personal approach to musical projects much like a travel writer might approach the preparation for a book. You latch on to a certain theme or historical event and follow that into the unknown, while, at the same time, expanding on those themes.

70. I hied me off to Arcady- The month it was the month of May, And all along the pleasant way, The morning birds were mad with glee, And all the flowers sprang up to see, As I went on to Arcady.

71. So I was on the ship, with 800 lesbians. We can't get off. So much drama. 'Were you looking at her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her? WELL, WERE YOU?!' We all got on the same cycle.

72. Safety is not to be secured, then, by the wisest foresight. I shall embark more composedly in our merchant-ship, praying fervently, indeed, that it may not be my lot to lose my boy at sea, either by unsolaced illness, or amid the howling waves; or, if so, that Ossoli, Angelo, and I may go together, and that the anguish may be brief.

73. On my way here I passed a local cinema and it turns out you were expecting me after all, for the billboards read: The Mummy Returns.

74. This poor little one-horse town.

75. Enough, enough, enough! Say no more! Lump the whole thing! say that the Creator made Italy from designs by Michael Angelo!

76. Conductor, when you receive a fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare: A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare! Chorus: Punch, brothers, punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare.

77. Chicago is my favorite American city. ... I like all the museums. I love the Art Institute. I love all the theatre and the blues clubs and bars, and the people are so great. I think Chicago is the perfect blend of a big city with a Midwestern finish on it. Everybody is really nice but it is a sophisticated city. I love the park. I love the zoo. I love the lake. The whole thing.

78. I'm going to climb up this ladder, you understand, to this gate that's like this high and I'm going to pass two dogs and some bags and myself over the thing into a cab driver's arms. THAT's my plan!

79. O'er seas that have no beaches To end their waves upon, I floated with twelve peaches, A sofa and a swan.

80. It's great to be here in Las Vegas! Actually Las Vegas is really not that great...

81. When I play the South, they say 'y'all' in the South. They take out the 'O' and the 'U'. So when I'm in the South I try to talk like that so people understand me. 'Hello, can I have a bowl of chicken noodle s-p? Come on, I'm in the South, you understand. I mean I'm in the S-th, and I want some s-p!' 'I stubbed my toe, -ch!' 'I need to lay down on the c-ch!' 'I need to get the fuck -t of the S-th!'[6]

82. where in hell can you go far from the things that you know far from the sprawl of concrete that keeps crawling its way about 1,000 miles a day?

83. For the time being I am enjoying my chance to enjoy civilian life off the road. If I combined all the months that I have lived out of a van or tour bus it would amount to twelve solid years. That would be twelve years of driving or flying an average of 100 to 400 miles per day and sleeping in a different city every night. It was a very unique lifestyle that I adapted to and even enjoyed with it's surreal pace. It's also a lifestyle that can take a toll on the body and relationships with the people that you are constantly leaving behind.

84. A little piece of Aldershot in Andalucia.

85. Comrades, I've voyaged long and far on sea and soul, my eyes have seen disease, gods, ghosts, and men, and yet in no land have I seen a more false, murderous siren than that wind-headed, babbling, blind bitch-hound called Hope!

86. Why won't Chomsky come to Iraq? --Ibrahim al-Jaafari, February 2006 [184]

87. Sitting there in paranoid fantasy You can't read minds You always get morose and speculate about the destruction of the universe whenever you come out of starflight. It's your peculiar manifestation of motion sickness.

88. Life at Papeete soon became a burden. It was Europe, the Europe which I had thought to shake off - and that under the aggravating circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization. Was I to have made this far journey, only to find the very thing which I had fled?

89. How long have I been here? Henceforward for? I shall not know. For I have been traveling for too long. My bones too weary to remember my age. Hence, how long have I been here? Thou shalt never know.

90. I advised him to go to New Orleans, but he decided it was too civilized. He had to have people around him with flowers on their heads and rings in their noses before he could feel at home.

91. I'm on my way, I don't know where I'm goin', I'm on my way, I'm takin' my time, but I don't know where. Goodbye to Rosie, the Queen of Corona See you, me and Julio down by the schoolyard.

92. Everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance Everybody thinks its true.

93. Even the most distant and exotic place has its parallel in ordinary life.

94. You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying.

95. I got headbutted in Wolverhampton. You [Carl] get snogged in Northampton, head butted in Wolverhampton and I won't even tell you what happened in Southampton. Basically Carlos gets the love and I get all the head butts, it seems to be the way of things.

96. New York City's very pretty in the night-time But oh, don't you miss Soho?

97. The desert is not an island: the island is not enchanted: and the desert is no habitation for men.

98. All educated Americans, first or last, go to Europe.

99. Thinking hard about you I got on the bus and paid 30 cents car fare and asked the driver for two transfers before discovering that I was alone.

100. I LOVE Toronto. I also really love Japan tough. My fans are so supportive and enthusiastic over there. (Answer on the question where Rihanna's favorite places were)