The more you write, the more you're capable of writing.

Love doesn't last.

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.

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

I don't think I've ever seen a person having a serious conversation on a cellphone. It's like a kiddie thing, a complete time waster.

People who don't read books a lot are threatened by books.

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.

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

The amount of hassle involved in travel can be overwhelming.

It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.

A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it, and has a hard time, and then comes back and writes about it. It's not about inventing.

Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in.

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.

Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.

If you're a misanthrope you stay at home. There are certain writers who really don't like other people. I'm not like that, I don't think.

My father had an invisible job outside of the house; I didn't know what he did. But my kids were privy to the ups and downs of a writer's life.

Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall.

Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Graham Greene - they influenced my life to a profound extent.

It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.

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

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

A gun show is about like-minded people who feel as if everything has been taken away from them - jobs, money, pride.

Maine out of season is unmistakably a great destination: hospitable, good-humored, plenty of elbow room, short days, dark nights of crackling ice crystals.