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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
Longer
Pulled
Brain
Threatened
Machete
Fear
Brains
Machetes
Heads
Scalp
Bars
Scoop
Pick
Rip
Picks
Troubled
Tried
Crowded

More quotes by 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.
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In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.
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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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Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.
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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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For my father there was no sharper way to understand a country than by listening to its stories.
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?
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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.
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Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.
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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.
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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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In India everything has a use and a value.
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There's nothing like a pack of mules to give one a sense of entourage.
Tahir Shah
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On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.
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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.
Tahir Shah
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A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.
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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
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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 taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.
Tahir Shah
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Where does one go in a tremendous city like Calcutta to find insider information? I recalled India's golden rule: do the opposite of what would be normal anywhere else.
Tahir Shah