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The dirty little secret about adventure writing is that something has to go wrong.

Tim Cahill

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Tim Cahill
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More quotes by Tim Cahill

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It was Muddy Waters who took the Delta blues north to Chicago, electrified the sound, and changed the course of popular music as we know it. That's pretty much the judgment of history, and it is mine as well.
Tim Cahill
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For me, to find a place that doesn't have an organized tour going to it is becoming more and more difficult. A lot of times it involves danger of a political nature - places where the adventure-travel trips can't go because they can't get any liability insurance.
Tim Cahill
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I wanted to be a writer from my early teenage years, but I never told anyone. Writers, in my opinion, were god-like creatures, and to say I was striving to be a writer would be incredibly arrogant.
Tim Cahill
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Right whales, for all their size, are surprisingly athletic. They roll, they slap their flukes, they lift their heads out of the water in a move known as a spy hop. They find playthings and are particularly fond of swimming repeatedly through clumps of seaweed, which slides over them like a feathered boa.
Tim Cahill
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I see many people trying to write well about the wilderness, and essentially failing. To me there are basically two aspects of a failed outdoor story. One is the phony epiphany on the mountain top.
Tim Cahill
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The explorer is the person who is lost.
Tim Cahill
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As one of the first editors at 'Outside' magazine in 1975, it was my contention that most American writing going back to James Fennimore Cooper and then through Twain up to Hemingway had been outdoor writing. At that time, adventure writing meant stuff like 'Saga' or 'Argosy.' 'Death Race with the Jungle Leper Army!' That kind of thing.
Tim Cahill
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New Orleans jazz is a complex and embracing art form that began about the same time as the blues and encompassed many of its excellences.
Tim Cahill
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A journey is measured in friends, not miles.
Tim Cahill
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In the sago palms, you'll often find sago beetles which are about the size of your little finger. The Karowai put those on the fire until they're crispy and eat them. They taste a little bit like creamy snails. But compared to sago, the sago beetle is really pretty good.
Tim Cahill
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Most of us abandoned the idea of a life full of adventure and travel sometime between puberty and our first job. Our dreams died under the dark weight of responsibility. Occasionally the old urge surfaces, and we label it with names that suggest psychological aberrations: the big chill, a midlife crisis.
Tim Cahill
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My problem with most athletic challenges is training. I'm lazy and find that workouts cut into my drinking time.
Tim Cahill
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My concept of drama requires obstacles, and there's no obstacles in comfort.
Tim Cahill
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Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.
Tim Cahill
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I am living out my adolescent dream of travel and adventure.
Tim Cahill
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There's a story everywhere. Being bored to death someplace is basically a funny proposition. What you have to watch out for is you don't write a boring story about a boring place.
Tim Cahill
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Mystery is a resource, like coal or gold, and its preservation is a fine thing.
Tim Cahill
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For me, Brett Emerton is the heart and soul of the Australian team. Him signing for Sydney FC, it has to be the biggest catch in the history of Australian football. He's a machine and he's probably the best pro I've ever trained and worked with.
Tim Cahill
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Stanley Kubrick went with his gut feeling: he directed 'Dr. Strangelove' as a black comedy. The film is routinely described as a masterpiece.
Tim Cahill
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I have no problem with the adventure travel movement. It makes better, more sensitive people. If you get people diving on a coral reef, they're going to become more respectful of the outdoors and more concerned with the threats that places like that face and they're going to care more about protecting them than they would have before.
Tim Cahill