54 Quotes by Rick Steves

Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.

Self-consciousness kills communication.

I would like travelers, especially American travelers, to travel in a way that broadens their perspective, because I think Americans tend to be some of the most ethnocentric people on the planet. It's not just Americans, it's the big countries. It's the biggest countries that tend to be ethnocentric or ugly. There are ugly Russians, ugly Germans, ugly Japanese and ugly Americans. You don't find ugly Belgians or ugly Bulgarians, they're just too small to think the world is their norm.

As a traveler, I've often found that the more a culture differs from my own, the more I am struck by its essential humanity.

Noticing the twinkling lights strung up in honor of the holy month of Ramadan, I thought "Charming- they've draped Christmas lights between their minarets." But a Turk might come into my house and say, "Charming- he's draped Ramadan lights on his Christmas tree.

What little history we've got in this rugged little corner of ours, we want to treasure. In Europe, they don't bulldoze things thoughtlessly. They preserve them.

Travel is intensified living . . . and one of the last great sources of legal adventure.

We're enjoying a great deal of success in attracting film crews to York and we're working closely with the city council to make York the most film-friendly city in the UK.

Eastern Europe has been really trendy. Prague is the best-preserved city in the region ... and the best beer in Europe lands on your table there for 50 cents.