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"Back at the guest house I tried to acclimatise. A travel-worn adventurer had once told me that leaning with one's head dangling over the end of a bed was the best way to achieve this. It was while I was in this position, the blood rushing to my temples, that the door swung open."
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"We continuously make promises and create agreements with ourselves and others. Some of these agreements are mutually beneficial. However, when you realize that things you agreed to in the past are no longer helpful, possible, or relevant, renegotiate. Be invested enough in your situations or relationships for renegotiation to take place."

"Great leadership involves three things. The ability to realize when you are wrong, a willingness to learn from it, and an eagerness to change course if necessary."

"To emend one's thinking constantly is a desirable practice, and one I often engage in--sometimes to the point of being almost schizophrenic. But there are cases where one should not parade changes just to prove one is up to date. In the field of ideas, as much as in other fields, monogamy is not necessarily a sign of absence of libido."

"Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking."

"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."

"A windmill is eternally at work to accomplish one end although it shifts with every variation of the weather cock and assumes 10 different positions in a day."

"If you want your tree to produce plenty o' fruit, you've got to cut it back from time to time. Same thing with your neural cells. Some people might call it brain damage. I call it prunin'."

"She was not vain enough to work her will against the world. But she could use the things the world had given her."

"Unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."

"There are no conditions to which a man cannot become accustomed."
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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