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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: 58
Born: 1966
Born: November 16
Author
Comedian
Explorer
Journalist
Novelist
Writer
London
England
Bars
Scoop
Pick
Rip
Picks
Troubled
Tried
Crowded
Longer
Pulled
Brain
Threatened
Machete
Fear
Brains
Machetes
Heads
Scalp

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.
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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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Previous journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead.
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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.
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The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.
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Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.
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The pursuit of illusion is not about studying for prizes, or for study's sake. There's no right or wrong, no pass or fail.
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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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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.
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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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Buy a house in a foreign country and, it seems, that anything which can go wrong usually does.
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One senses that, in these conditions, no amount of wet-wiping could bring true hygiene.
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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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For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories.
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For me, nature is something you watch on the Discovery Channel, or on the evening news -- as you learn how much more of it's been savaged to make way for the Blackberry realm that is my home
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I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.
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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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On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.
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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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