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Exlpore more Survival quotes

"Fish are small, but do not drown in the sea. Ships are big, but sink in the ocean."

"Food, the stoking-up process, the keeping alive of an individual flame, the process that begins before birth and is continued after it by the mother, and finally taken over by the individual himself, who goes on day after day putting an assortment of objects into a hole in his face without becoming surprised or bored."

"Money is good, but I prefer food, water, gold, weapon and energy."

"Endurance is more important than truth because without endurance there can't be any truth. And truth means going to the end like you mean it. That way, death itself comes up short when it grabs."

"Beans are a warm cloak against economic cold."

"I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody."
Explore more quotes by Tahir Shah


"I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand."


"A journey of observation must leave as much as possible to chance. Random movement is the best plan for maximum observation."


"Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Sometimes the room would fill like a railway station at rush hour and I would be expected to cure widespread boredom."


"As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end."


"Settling into a new country is like getting used to a new pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing those shoes is like wearing no shoes at all. The more scuffed they get, the more you love them and the more you can't imagine life without them."


"An intelligent enemy,' he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, 'rather than a foolish friend.' Or, 'He learnt the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.' Or, the favourite of Jan Fishan Khan: 'Nothing is what it seems."


"For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure."


"The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence."
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