Quotes by Rory MacLean

The process of communication with the afterlife - more of an exchange than a conversation - has always fascinated me.

To me, it remains incomprehensible that a people who can design the Porsche 911 and sleek, white ice trains, who created the Bauhaus and speak at least three languages at birth, want to own twee Christmas figurines painted in gaudy colours, dress up in Bavarian lederhosen, and eat Haribo gummy bears.

The earliest maps were story maps. Cartographers were artists who mingled knowledge with supposition, memory and fears. Their maps described both landscape and the events, which had taken place within it, enabling travellers to plot a route as well as to experience a story.

The travel book is a convenient metaphor for life, with its optimistic beginning or departure, its determined striving, and its reflective conclusion. Journeys change travellers just as a good travel book can change readers.

Berlin is all about volatility. Its identity is based not on stability but on change.