It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling.

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.

See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask for no guarantees, ask for no security.

Tourism is the great soporific. It's a huge confidence trick, and gives people the dangerous idea that there's something interesting in their lives. It's musical chairs in reverse..... All the upgrades in existence lead to the same airports and resort hotels, the same pina colada bullshit. The tourists smile at their tans and their shiny teeth and think they're happy. But the suntans hide who they really are-- salary slaves, with heads full of American rubbish. Travel is the last fantasy the 2oth Century left us, the delusion that going somewhere helps you reinvent yourself.

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.