I’m not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

You have to see and smell and feel the circumstances of people to really understand them.

I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.

It’s a frustrating game because the situations so drastically change at different times over the course of the week, the game, the season. It feels like brain surgery at times.

Since I have come to America, I am often asked whether my next novel will be set in America. I don’t think it will. I think I will be living in America for some time to come, but while living in America, I would like to write about Japanese society from the outside.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

Going to Southeast Asia for the first time and tasting that spectrum of flavors – that certainly changed my whole palate, the kind of foods I crave. A lot of the dishes I used to love became boring to me.

If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.

Work aside, we come to New York for the possibility of interaction and inspiration.

The purpose of a vacation is to have the time to rest. But many of us, even when we go on vacation, don’t know how to rest. We may even come back more tired than before we left.

Perception often lags behind reality, and I can say from experience that the vast majority of public officials in Louisiana are much better than our reputation holds us to be.

When I have been travelling around to speak in different countries, I am always offered help to write about the specific climate policies in specific countries. But that is not really necessary. Because the basic problem is the same everywhere.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

I love Africa, and Ulusaba, our home in South Africa, is pretty special. It’s on a rocky hill overlooking the bush, and from your room, you can see lions stalking zebras by the waterhole.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

London is a roost for every bird.

Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.

The feeling is constantly growing on me that I had been the first to hear the greeting of one planet to another.

Foreignness is all around. Only in the heart of the heart of the country, namely the heart of the United States, can you avoid such a thing. In the center of an empire, you can think of your experience as universal. Outside the empire or on the fringes of the empire, you cannot.

Listen; there’s a hell of a good universe next door: let’s go.

Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

The people of England are the most enthusiastic in the world.

Despite all I have seen and experienced, I still get the same simple thrill out of glimpsing a tiny patch of snow in a high mountain gully and feel the same urge to climb towards it.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

I doubt anyone else would have travelled as extensively as I have to meet the citizens of the country.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I’m very, very grateful; it’s a fun job. It’s a luxury.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.

I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first.

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

In this outward and physical ceremony we attest once again to the inner and spiritual strength of our Nation. As my high school teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, used to say: ‚We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.‘

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

I don’t know if she should worry too much, I mean some of our greatest writers have had movies made of their books, lots of Hemingway novels were turned into movies, it doesn’t hurt the book.

A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.

The penalty for getting mugged in an American city and losing your ID is that you can’t fly home.

Forty to 60 I would say is your prime. That’s when you know the most, you’ve seen the most, you understand the most, and you still have some physical energy.

After having dispatched a meal, I went ashore, and found no habitation save a single house, and that without an occupant; we had no doubt that the people had fled in terror at our approach, as the house was completely furnished.

The left paw has done me well over the years. I’m not a scientist, I’m a martial artist.

Man, I really like Vegas.

The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing – that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world – is what I wish for all.

The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I’m more at home in the vacant lots.

Back in Oakland, we have a lot of food in the locker room, but on the road, it’s mostly just fruit. So we have to prepare differently. But really, once you get to the gym, everything on the road is pretty much the same.

Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.

When you have really exhausted an experience you always reverence and love it.

The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

Space is almost infinite. As a matter of fact, we think it is infinite.

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

The Iraqis have become invested in their nationhood.

With the casino and the beds, our passengers will have at least two ways to get lucky on one of our flights.

My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

I’ve been to Disneyland, like, 10 times. I’m getting really tired of Disneyland.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest and my trips to the poles. But there’s no doubt that my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics.

I’ve lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.

I’m one of the world’s most self-conscious people. I really have to struggle.