When the heart speaks, its language is the same under all latitudes.

When I crossed Asia with my friend Peter Fleming, we spoke to no one but each other during many months, and we covered exactly the same ground. Nevertheless my journey differed completely from his.

I wanted to learn a few foreign languages, and therefore I had to go abroad.

Others are keen to see if natives other than us live better than we do, without heat in pipes, ice in boxes, sunshine in bulbs, music on disks, or images gliding over a pale screen.

Not only does travel give us a new system of reckoning, it also brings to the fore unknown aspects of our own self. Our consciousness being broadened and enriched, we shall judge ourselves more correctly.

I had to live in the desert before I could understand the full value of grass in a green ditch.