Tahir Shah Quotes

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

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.

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

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

[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.

Stories are not like the real world; they aren't held back by what we know is false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel inside.

There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.

I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains.

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.

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

Previous journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead.

I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.

Time spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal.

Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.

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.

The rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.

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.

When I am about to embark on a difficult journey, I comfort myself by reading the accounts of the great nineteenth-century travellers, men like Stanley, Burton, Speke, Burckhardt and Barth.

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.

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