Despair is the armchair (2)

Despair is the armchair

As you read travel books, you should be able to see the people and places, to hear them, to smell them. Some of it is painful, but travel - its very motion - ought to suggest hope. Despair is the armchair; its indifference and glazed, incurious eyes. I think travellers are essentially optimists, or else they would never go anywhere. A travel book ought to reflect that optimism.

· Paul Theroux

old idea

Nothing can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
- Sidney J. Harris

The greatest challenge

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
- Bertrand Russell

serious matters

Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.
- Philip K. Dick