22 Quotes by Dervla Murphy

Whatever the theologians might say about heaven being in a state of union with God, I knew it consisted of an infinite library; and eternity was simply what enabled one to read uninterruptedly for ever.

Buying a bicycle is a momentous event, akin to marriage: you are acquiring a partner.

I wonder if those experts who tell us that our sexual appetite is the strongest know what real thirst feels like; I can imagine the desire for water driving someone to commit a crime to which sexual desire could never drive them.

Sunnis consider Shias a pack of unwholesome fanatics and Shias consider Sunnis a gang of lukewarm no-goods – there’s nothing like religion for spreading brotherly love!

Undoubtedly the Afghans must be, by our standards, the best-looking people in the world. They have everything; height, proportions, carriage, features and complexion.

It is far easier to explain to a three-year-old how babies are made than to explain the processes whereby bread or sugar appear on the table.

The more I see of life in these ‘undeveloped countries’ and of the methods adopted to ‘improve’ them, the more depressed I become. It seems criminal that the backwardness of a country like Afghanistan should be used as an excuse for America and Russia to have a tug-of-war for possession.

On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as presents and a few days later I decided to cycle to India.

For it is not death or hardship that is a fearful thing, but the fear of death and hardship.’ And.