Because of my capacity for listening to strangers' tales, or the details of their lives, my patience with their food and their crotchets, my curiosity that borders on nosiness, I am told that anyone traveling with me experiences an unbelievable tedium, and this is why I choose to travel alone.

The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, to make voluminous notes, to tell the truth.

The people I've known who've done great things of that type - you know, building hospitals, running schools - are very humble people. They give their lives to the project.

When I left Africa in 1966 it seemed to me to be a place that was developing, going in a particular direction, and I don't think that is the case now. And it's a place where people still kid themselves - you know, in a few years this will happen or that will happen. Well, it's not going to happen. It's never going to happen.

We all have aspects of ourselves that we my not be aware of. Actors in particular - they have multiple personality disorder. They get paid a lot of money to exhibit that.

I get paid a bunch of money to do this, and so there's a responsibility to my teammates, every single day, to show up and be the absolute best you can be.

A misconception that exists in the eyes of the general reading population is that authors make truckloads of money.

I wasn't brought up to be dazzled by money or fame.