Quote

Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our habits.

Pico Iyer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Pico Iyer
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: February 11
Essayist
Novelist
Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer
Home
Really
Homes
Habits
Leaving
Travel
Habit

More quotes by Pico Iyer

Image
Finding a sanctuary, a place apart from time, is not so different from finding a faith.
Pico Iyer
Image
Lonely Places, then are the places that are not on international wavelengths, do not know how to carry themselves, are lost when it comes to visitors. They are shy, defensive, curious places places that do not know how they are supposed to behave.
Pico Iyer
Image
Not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury nowadays it’s often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize. Stillness is not just an indulgence for those with enough resources – it’s a necessity for anyone who wishes to gather less visible resources.
Pico Iyer
Image
Just as there are many more Californians now to be found in the temples of Kyoto or the villages of Bali or the mountains of the Himalayas than ever before, what is also exciting is that one can just go downtown Santa Barbara and find ayurvedic medicine, Thai restaurants, and Japanese cars in abundance.
Pico Iyer
Image
Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.
Pico Iyer
Image
The average American teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day, though one girl in Sacramento managed to handle an average of 10,000 every 24 hours for a month.
Pico Iyer
Image
Living here in California, I think one of the scariest things about California is the fact that it is rewriting its script and changing constantly and so many people don't know who they will be and who they will be with a year from now.
Pico Iyer
Image
I'm one of those perverse people who likes being alone. I always took myself to be a community of one. That's what I am comfortable with.
Pico Iyer
Image
I remember many years ago, I asked [Dalai Lama] about exile and he said: Well, exile is good because it's brought me and my people closer to reality, and reality is almost a shrine before which he sits. Exile brings us up against the wall and forces us to rise to the challenge of the moment.
Pico Iyer
Image
A holy day, after all, is a day for considering everything you otherwise think too little about.
Pico Iyer
Image
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves and we travel, next to find ourselves.
Pico Iyer
Image
Most of us who have been lucky enough to hear, read and see the Dalai Lama, often come away thinking, What a kind, inspiring and golden human being! That is true, but I think it does him an injustice.
Pico Iyer
Image
You can continue your practice, you can exercise kindness, you can practice meditation whether you're in a prison or a millionaire's house, whether you're in India or Tibet.
Pico Iyer
Image
The central paradox of the machines that have made our lives so much brighter, quicker, longer and healthier is that they cannot teach us how to make the best use of them the information revolution came without an instruction manual.
Pico Iyer
Image
Literally, when you wake up at 9 o'clock in the morning in Havana you don't know where you'll be at noon. But it's a safe guess that you'll either be married, arrested, or in the midst of some incredible transaction where somebody is stealing your passport or paying you in Dominican pesos for it, or whatever. It's a wild place.
Pico Iyer
Image
Dalai Lama has not coming to show us his kindness, so that we can enjoy his charisma, he's coming with a specific message for the specific circumstances of the world today.
Pico Iyer
Image
Our own country seemed more polarized than it's ever been and since the two terrorist attacks of 9/11, religion was in greater disrepute than at any other time in my lifetime.
Pico Iyer
Image
Dalai Lama is transforming those criteria - and the whole way of conducting politics. He's conducting politics in a much deeper way than most politicians are able to. He's the only politician I know of who's a monk. The Pope, of course, is in a similar position, but the Pope isn't in the same way leading a country of many million people.
Pico Iyer
Image
You can see exile as loss, and then it will be a loss for you. You can treat it as opportunity and then all kinds of benefits accrue.
Pico Iyer
Image
Mr. Trump doesn't radiate many of the qualities I respect. But what do I know? I've never met Trump. I know he's savvy enough to change his tune according to his audience and I don't know very much at all about how government works.
Pico Iyer