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Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.

Tahir Shah

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Tahir Shah
Age: 58
Born: 1966
Born: November 16
Author
Comedian
Explorer
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Requiring
Contemplation
Alternatives
Luxury
Time

More quotes by Tahir Shah

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There can be few situations more fearful than breaking down in darkness on the highway leading to Casablanca. I have rarely felt quite so vulnerable or alone.
Tahir Shah
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In moments of great uncertainty on my travels, I have always felt that something is protecting me, that i will come to no harm.
Tahir Shah
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To be selfless, you would give charity anonymously, walj softly on the earth, and look out for others-even total strangers-before you look out for yourself. For the Arab mind, the self is an obstacle, an impediment, in humanity's quest foe real progress.
Tahir Shah
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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.
Tahir Shah
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My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.
Tahir Shah
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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
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The backstreet cafe in Casablanca was for me a place of mystery, a place with a soul, a place with danger. There was a sense that the safety nets had been cut away, that each citizen walked upon the high wire of this, the real world. I longed not merely to travel through it, but to live in such a city.
Tahir Shah
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Buy a house in a foreign country and, it seems, that anything which can go wrong usually does.
Tahir Shah
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The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.
Tahir Shah
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One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.
Tahir Shah
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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
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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.
Tahir Shah
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In India everything has a use and a value.
Tahir Shah
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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.
Tahir Shah
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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?
Tahir Shah
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A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.
Tahir Shah
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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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If hot food is they key to maintaining an expedition's stamina, then low grade gut-rot alcohol is the key to sustaining its sense of pleasure.
Tahir Shah
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I was becoming addicted to Bombay. There was squalor and poverty, but I had begun to realise my good fortune and would never again forget it.
Tahir Shah
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Stories are not like the real world they aren't held back by what we know is false or true. What's important is how a story makes you feel inside.
Tahir Shah