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Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order.
Tahir Shah
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Tahir Shah
Age: 57
Born: 1966
Born: November 16
Author
Comedian
Explorer
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Important
Thing
Priorities
Kept
Survival
Respect
Another
Order
Right
More quotes by Tahir Shah
Foras Road has a sordid reputation (…) Old crones sat in doorways, while their daughters were pushed out to earn money. It is intriguing that a society which is very covert with sexuality should be so straightforward about prostitution.
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Real travel is not about the highlights with which you dazzle your friends once you're home. It's about the loneliness, the solitude, the evenings spent by yourself, pining to be somewhere else. Those are the moments of true value. You feel half proud of them and half ashamed and you hold them to your heart.
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During the days I felt myself slipping into a kind of madness. Solitary confinement has an astonishing effect on the mind. The trip was to stay calm and keep myself occupied. I spent hours working out how to break free. But trying to escape would have been instant suicide.
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On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.
Tahir Shah
Most journeys have a clear beginning, but on some the ending is less well-defined. The question is, at what point do you bite your lip and head for home?
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Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.
Tahir Shah
I was no longer troubled when he pulled out a machete in a crowded bar, tried to pick up schoolgirls, or threatened to scalp us, then rip off our heads and scoop out our brains.
Tahir Shah
On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.
Tahir Shah
A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.
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Spend sixteen weeks in the jungle and you being to question your own sanity, especially when you are the one goading everyone else ahead.
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Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.
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I believe that Marrakech ought to be earned as a destination. The journey is the preparation for the experience. Reaching it too fast derides it, makes it a little less easy to understand.
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The Occident has never found it easy to grasp the strange netherworld of spirits that followers of Islam universally believe exist in a realm overlaid our own.
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In India everything has a use and a value.
Tahir Shah
Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.
Tahir Shah
Buy a house in a foreign country and, it seems, that anything which can go wrong usually does.
Tahir Shah
In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.
Tahir Shah
I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.
Tahir Shah
There is nothing quite as unpleasant as wearing a pair of briefs which have been trailed through a Calcutta courtyard. Nothing, that is, except having one's elbows and knees lacerated by unseen slivers of glass and discarded razor blades.
Tahir Shah
These days no one challenges us,' he said. 'And because there is no challenge, there is no reason to work hard. And with no reason to work hard, we have all become lazy.
Tahir Shah