You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back

You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time.

To travel unconnected, away from anyone's gaze or reach, is a bliss.

The traveler's boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience - shocking though it may seem at the time - is an enrichment, even a blessing, one of the life-altering trophies of the road.

... the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.

It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.

Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.

Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.

Railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly level no matter what the landscape, improving your mood with speed, and never upsetting your drink.