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"Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else."
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"With me, travelling is frankly a vice. The temptation to indulge in it is one which I find almost as hard to resist as the temptation to read promiscuously, omnivorously and without purpose. From time to time, it is true, I make a desperate resolution to mend my ways. I sketch out programmes of useful, serious reading; I try to turn my rambling voyages into systematic tours through the history of art and civilization. But without much success. After a little I relapse into my old bad ways. Deplorable weakness! I try to comfort myself with the hope that even my vices may be of some profit to me."
"Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart."
"Perhaps it's my natural pessimism, but it seems that an awfully large part of travel these days is to see things while you still can."
"The thing about Ayers Rock is that by the time you finally get there you are already a little sick of it."
"I built my home in the feeling of waking up at dawn in a new city, where every road is the right road because there is no ordinary. Everything is as profound as you make it."
"The photograph reverses the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar."
"But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses."
"It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent."
Explore more quotes by Tahir Shah
"Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart."
"The pursuit of illusion is not about studying for prizes, or for study's sake. There's no right or wrong, no pass or fail."
"Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff."
"Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession."
"Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat."
"Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster."
"We had the kind of conversations that only great friends can ever share. They were touched with magic."
"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 the head of an expedition, you can't pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way."
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