01c. 1966 ADMy father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, allow the imagination to be freed, and we are charged with the capability of heighetned thought.Learn to use your eyes as if they are your ears, he said, and you become connected with the ancient heritage of man, a dream world for the waking mind.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
02c. 1966 ADOnce in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood. With such a book the impact isn't necessarily obvious at first...but the more you read it and re-read it, and live with it, and travel with it, the more it speaks to you, and the more you realize that you cannot live without that book. It's then that the wisdom hidden inside, the seed, is passed on.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
03c. 1966 ADThere comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
04c. 1966 ADI was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
05c. 1966 ADIn the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
06c. 1966 ADEnlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
07c. 1966 ADAs a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
08c. 1966 ADThe quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the vaguest hope of success evaporates.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
09c. 1966 ADPrevious journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
10c. 1966 ADI felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
12c. 1966 ADTime spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
13c. 1966 ADThe inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
14c. 1966 ADThe rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
15c. 1966 ADThere can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
16c. 1966 ADReal terror is a crippling experience. You sweat so much that your skin goes all wrinkly like when you've been in the bath all afternoon. And then the scent of your sweat changes. It smells like cat pee, no doubt from the adrenalin. However hard you wash, it won't come off. It smothers you, as your muscles become frozen with acid and your mind paralysed by despair.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
17c. 1966 ADAny man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
18c. 1966 ADOnce in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
19c. 1966 ADWhen I am about to embark on a difficult journey, I comfort myself by reading the accounts of the great nineteenth-century travellers, men like Stanley, Burton, Speke, Burckhardt and Barth.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
20c. 1966 ADFor me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
21c. 1966 AD[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
22c. 1966 ADFor me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news -- as you learn how much more of it's been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that is my homeTahir Shah / quote ↗
23c. 1966 ADA cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had been drawn up by a passionate sadist.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
24c. 1966 ADThere is nothing quite as unpleasant as wearing a pair of briefs which have been trailed through a Calcutta courtyard. Nothing, that is, except having one's elbows and knees lacerated by unseen slivers of glass and discarded razor blades.Tahir Shah / quote ↗
