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.

These days no one challenge us. And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.

Tourists don't have time to listen. They just want to take photographs.

Settling into a new country is like getting used to a pair of shoes. At first they pinch a little, but you like the way they look, so you carry on. The longer you have them, the more comfortable they become. Until one day without realizing it you reach a glorious plateau. Wearing those shoes is like wearing no shoes at all. The more scuffed they get, the more you love them and the more you can't imagine the life without them.

Never give charity if the reason is to make yourself feel better. Real charity is not selfish, but selfless.

If you want to find buried treasure, you must buy a spade.

Understand the desert you had to understand camels, and to understand camels you had to understand the people who kept them.

The imagination of children. It's a kind of programming, an original setting for humanity. It's inside us all, asleep.

Unlike in the West, where the price is the first thing you demand, in the East the transaction is far more subtle. You first establish that you want to buy an object. You inspect it and only then you do you ask how much it might be.

In Europe we bluster about, demanding answers to direct questions, whereas in the East a far more circuitous and ancient system is at work, where a little inane conversation can open gilded doors.

In the Occident learning tends to be done through reading, while in the Orient the chain of transmission is made through generations of accumulated conversations.

Tangier is a hybrid of Europe, Africa and the Arab world. It is a city of such charm and sophistication that the people who reside there sometimes forget their astonishing good fortune.