Quotes by Tahir Shah

My 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.

Once 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 isnt 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. Its then that the wisdom hidden inside, the seed, is passed on.

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.

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.

In 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.

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

As a travel writer Ive specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a readers hair stick on end.

The 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.

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

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

Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.

Time spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal.

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.

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.

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.

Real terror is a crippling experience. You sweat so much that your skin goes all wrinkly like when youve 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 wont come off. It smothers you, as your muscles become frozen with acid and your mind paralysed by despair.

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

Once 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.

When 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.

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.