"Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones."

"My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind."

"The situation was different in the jungle. Every inch of ground had to be earned, and was done so through much exertion with the blade."

"For me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news -- as you learn how much more of it's been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that is my home."

"There is nothing like a train journey for reflection."

"Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realised later that, in the East, a commitment to produce does not automatically accompany employment."

"Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent."

"The first rule of an expedition is that everyone should stick together."

"The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it."

"A journey, I reflected, is of no merit unless it has tested you."

"The quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the vaguest hope of success evaporates."

"Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood."

"There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone."

"The inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there."

"As anyone who's ever taken an Ethiopian bus knows, there is an unwritten rule that the windows must remain firmly closed."

"Experience has taught me the power of trophies. You may have every knick-knack and useless contraption ever devised, but while they weigh you down, a simple trophy can go a long, long way."

"In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that I will come to no harm."

"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."

"Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat."

"It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa."

"In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life."

"The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after tow minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless."

"As far as Samson was concerned I was just another foreigner in pursuit of a lunatic quest."

"Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession."

"Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster."

"At the dealership, I pulled out the sieve and toyed with it threateningly. When the salesman was ready for me, I held it up, told him I was not a tourist and demanded a large discount."

"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."

"We had the kind of conversations that only great friends can ever share. They were touched with magic."

"The ants are bad" The Bear"the ants?"Tahir"Do not be fooled. They look very small, so harm you don't think of then at all. Then years. Then one day you wake up, and your home has fallen down." Osman."

"In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough."

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

"Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship."

"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 man was bundled into an armoured police van, he turned and shouted: 'Don't waste your life following others! Be individual! Live your dreams!'I stood there thinking. He was right. Ours is a society of followers, trapped by an island mentality."

"With an enthusiastic team you can achieve almost anything."

"Ours was not going to be a clone of the usual expeditions, oozing with sleekness. It was clear from the start that oddity was our advantage."

"The only thing they valued higher than ammunition were Man United footballs."

"Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives."

"Venture to a remote corner of a faraway land and, from the moment you get there, every person and every thing becomes an obstacle, designed to entrap you, to stop you proceeding on your way."

"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."

"In Morocco," said Osman, "word spreads like a fire tearing through the depths of Hell."

"Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff."

"Lured by the wilderness, and by the chance of spotting rare desert elephants, a few intrepid tourists make their way to the Skeleton Coast each year. It's just about as remote as any tourist destination on earth, but one that pays fabulous dividends."

"Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order."

"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."

"Bombay is a city where gossip is treated as a commodity."

"On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish."

"Stories are a communal currency of humanity."

"To Succeed, you must reach for the stars, and let your imagination find its own path."

"My father never told us how the stories worked. He didn't reveal the layers, the nuggets of information, the fragments of truth and fantasy. He didn't need to -- because, given the right conditions, the stories activated, sowing themselves."