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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

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Tahir Shah
Age: 57
Born: 1966
Born: November 16
Author
Comedian
Explorer
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Pick
Rip
Picks
Troubled
Tried
Crowded
Longer
Pulled
Brain
Threatened
Machete
Fear
Brains
Machetes
Heads
Scalp
Bars
Scoop

More quotes by Tahir Shah

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One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.
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Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.
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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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It is almost impossible to overemphasize the importance with which ancestry is held in the Middle East and North Africa.
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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.
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Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.
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Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.
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Respect was one thing. Survival was another. It was important that I kept my priorities in the right order.
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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.
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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.
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My father used to say that stories are part of the most precious heritage of mankind.
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To Succeed, you must reach for the stars, and let your imagination find its own path
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There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.
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The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.
Tahir Shah
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On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.
Tahir Shah
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The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after two minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless.
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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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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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There’s nothing quite like a good quest for getting your blood pumping.
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