Tahir Shah Quotes

45 Sourced Quotes

I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.

Tahir Shah
For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories.

Tahir Shah
Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession.

Tahir Shah
On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.

Tahir Shah
The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.

Tahir Shah
The pursuit of illusion is not about studying for prizes, or for study's sake. There's no right or wrong, no pass or fail.

Tahir Shah
Back at the Chateau Windsor there was a rat-like scratching at the door of my room. Vinod, the youngest servant, came in with a soda water. He placed it next to the bag of toffees. Then he watched me read. I was used to being observed reading. Sometimes the room would fill like a railway station at rush hour and I would be expected to cure widespread boredom

Tahir Shah
The mere mention of the Farakka Express, which jerks its way eastward each day from Delhi to Calcutta, is enough to throw even a seasoned traveller into fits of apoplexy. At a desert encampment on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, a hard-bitten adventurer had downed a peg of local fire-water then told me the tale. Farakka was a ghost train, he said, haunted by ghouls, Thuggees, and thieves. Only a passenger with a death wish would go anywhere near it.

Tahir Shah
The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after two minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless.

Tahir Shah
In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough.

Tahir Shah
There 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
The 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
Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.

Tahir Shah
There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.

Tahir Shah
There 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
There 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
Calcutta's the only city I know where you are actively encouraged to stop strangers at random for a quick chat.

Tahir Shah
The 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
The desert was bad, but nothing could compare with the horrors of a tropical rain forest.

Tahir Shah
I was becoming addicted to Bombay. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realise my good fortune and would never again forget it.

Tahir Shah
Previous journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead.

Tahir Shah
I 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
Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.

Tahir Shah
There's nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.

Tahir Shah
Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart.

Tahir Shah