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"Prideep pointed to the flames of paraffin lamps as they came alive in the distance and cackled in awe at the experience. I was to discover that making tasty soup with one carrot, ten peas and a little dishwater, was his greatest skill. One wondered what the man would be capable of creating with a blender and a non-stick frying-pan."
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Exlpore more Resourcefulness quotes

"A wise man is someone who knows how to convert obstacles into resources."

"You must learn to see everything around yourself as a resources, your opportunities, and turn them into your weapons to get them working in your favor, in order to achieve your goal."

"Poverty is the mother of invention."

"Anybody have any money?Frank checked his pockets. "Three denarii from Camp Jupiter. Five dollars Canadian.Hedge patted his gym shorts and pulled out what he found. "Three quarters, two dimes, a rubber band and-score! A piece of celery.He started munching on the celery, eyeing the change and the rubber band like they might be next."

"You must learn to see everything around yourself as your resources, your opportunities and turn them into your weapons so that everything works in your favor and helps to achieve your goal."

"You have everything already inside you necessary for the true response to any challenge you will meet. Usually, it's just a question of assembling some elements in a way that you didn't think to do before (which brings us to intuition)."

"If you cannot sit on a throne like a king, seize, like a tent-pitcher, the rope of the Royal tent."

"We hand the meat over to Greasy Sae in the kitchen. She likes District 13 well enough, even though she thinks the cooks are somewhat lacking in imagination. But a woman who came up with a palatable wild dog and rhubarb stew is bound to feel as if her hands are tied here."

"The wealth God has given to everyman is the wealth of TIME."

"A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art."
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."


"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."


"There is nothing quite as unpleasant as wearing a pair of briefs which have been trailed through a Calcutta courtyard. Nothing, that is, except having one's elbows and knees lacerated by unseen slivers of glass and discarded razor blades."
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