Wherever there is pressure to conform (one person’s conformity is often in the interests of another person’s power), there is a requirement to resist. Of course I did not mean that people should drop what they were doing and head for the wilder places, certainly not that they should copy what I did. I meant that one can choose adventure in the most

The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the first decision. And I knew even then that I would forget them time and time again and would have to go back and repeat those words that had become

Life’s so joyous, so sad, so ephemeral, so crazy, so meaningless, so goddamn funny.

A few of Rick Smolan’s pictures are included in this edition too. I love them unreservedly now. They may have supplanted true memory, but aren’t they wonderful?

Because if people started living out their fantasies, and refusing to accept the fruitless boredom that is offered them as normality, they would become hard to control.

I did not perceive at that time that I was allowing myself to get more involved with writing about the trip than the trip itself. It did not dawn on me that already I was beginning to see it as a story for other people, with a beginning and an ending.

Words are the memory twitching after the reality of the dance …

what’s true in one place is not necessarily true in another.

It’s important that we leave each other and the comfort of it, and circle away, even though it’s hard sometimes, so that we can come back and swap information about what we’ve learnt even if what we do changes us and we risk not recognizing each other when we return.’