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Diplomacy was what I wanted to do. From really quite an early age and I think I had a false impression that diplomacy equals travel.

John Gimlette

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John Gimlette
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: January 1
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Diplomacy
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More quotes by John Gimlette

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People my age and younger do think much more towards Europe. We have to fill the gap sometime - we can't think we are an empire any longer after all.
John Gimlette
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Paraguay has had a U.S. supermarket boss as its ambassador for a while. He did the job well. He was there because he wanted to be there. Rather than the British diplomat who didn't want to be there.
John Gimlette
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I think one should express opinions and these books are relatively opinionated. They would be a bit dry without it.
John Gimlette
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I slightly feel, having written Paraguay and Newfoundland - and both of them have developed eccentricities through isolation - I am quite relieved to be back in France and Germany, and I want people to enjoy these books for the writing and not because they feel they can laugh - some will laugh - at these eccentric places, that's not what I intend.
John Gimlette
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I don't therefore know how to write for the big papers. It must be kids - students - and retired people. And the reality is they are overwhelmed with people sending in their holiday stories and bits and pieces and so on.
John Gimlette
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I often think I would like to come even closer to home and write about somewhere like Wales, for example - which we in England tend to be a little snooty about. That's where the coal comes from and that sort of thing.
John Gimlette
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Paraguayans have no Italian blood and are half Guarani [Indian] blood. And the Chileans call themselves the English of South America, which actually couldn't be further from the truth.
John Gimlette
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I don't want to pay good money to hear ordinary people's lunatic views. Most of the people who phone in are [lunatics] - certainly in Britain.
John Gimlette
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The noise that we can expect in the future will only increase and we'll be wishing for rural Portugal or something like that.
John Gimlette
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This terrible frustration that we so often feel in the West in not being able to articulate and express ourselves.
John Gimlette
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I am sure you have met diplomats they probably travel far less than you do. Okay, they get to know a place very intensely - sometimes only the capitol city.
John Gimlette
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I am no apologist for Fidel's [Castro] regime. It is, after all, a totalitarian regime. So I would like to see that change.
John Gimlette
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American travel writing is very healthy. I'm always flicking through the reviews and I see plenty of travel writing - and an impressive line up and continual demand.
John Gimlette
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I am always surprised to go into a bar in Boston and three televisions are playing different channels, all at once. We are constantly surprised by this noise and television. It means that's what we are going to get, because we always get everything eventually.
John Gimlette
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I don't want to sell other people trips! I want to be there!
John Gimlette
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I have a nice little idea from some people I met there who are now in their seventies, and I want to tell their story about the revolution through the eyes of musicians, in fact. The '59 Revolution. And what has happened to them since. It's very much a Cuban story. They haven't fared too well.
John Gimlette
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I have to be careful not to visit one place right after the other and write one book after the other. Because I fear writing the same book all over again. That's why I am taking a break and doing something different this time.
John Gimlette
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I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.
John Gimlette
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India, to some extent, courses through my blood. My father was brought up there, and my grandfather served there, and so on. We have a very strong family affinity for the place.
John Gimlette
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If you travel in countries like Morocco, and I say that because I have just come from Morocco, if people are shouting at each other in an argument, violence is not going to follow. That would be just so far removed.
John Gimlette