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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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John Gimlette
Age: 61
Born: 1963
Born: January 1
Author
Journalist
Would
Like
Apologist
Fidel
Totalitarian
Castro
Regime
Regimes
Change

More quotes by 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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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.
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Benedict Allen gives you the impression that he hasn't done any research at all, and I am sure he has. And when he is off doing his ice dogs and that sort of thing - and therefore its not only an exploration of the place but also his imagination in a sense. It's very successful as technique.
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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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I am always surprised when people do get upset. Perhaps its just the nutty people who write to newspapers who get upset.
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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My parents probably feel closer to the U.S. They feel America came to our rescue in the war and all that sort of thing. And for their generation the war still goes on. We still save food and little bits get scraped off and boiled out the next day.
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
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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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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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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 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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A lot of books are sold and given away as presents. But who actually reads and enjoy reading?
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 have dipped into Ian McEwan and so on. I tend not to stick with one writer. But I dip in here and there.
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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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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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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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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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