Tahir Shah Quotes

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

My father used to tell me that stories offer the listener a chance to escape but, more importantly, he said, they provide people with a chance to maximize their minds. Suspend ordinary constraints, allow the imagination to be freed, and we are charged with the capability of heighetned thought.Learn to use your eyes as if they are your ears, he said, and you become connected with the ancient heritage of man, a dream world for the waking mind.

~ Tahir Shah

Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood. With such a book the impact isn't necessarily obvious at first...but the more you read it and re-read it, and live with it, and travel with it, the more it speaks to you, and the more you realize that you cannot live without that book. It's then that the wisdom hidden inside, the seed, is passed on.

~ Tahir Shah

There comes a stage at which a man would rather die cleanly by a bullet than by the unknown terror of the phantom in the forest.

~ Tahir Shah

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

In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.

~ Tahir Shah

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

~ Tahir Shah

As a travel writer I've specialized in gritty, fearful destinations, the kind of places that make a reader's hair stick on end.

~ Tahir Shah

The quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the vaguest hope of success evaporates.

~ Tahir Shah

Previous journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead.

~ Tahir Shah

I felt sure we could gain the upper hand by putting ourselves in the mindset of the Incas.

~ Tahir Shah

Contemplation is a luxury, requiring time and alternatives.

~ Tahir Shah

Time spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal.

~ Tahir Shah

The inertia of a jungle village is a dangerous thing. Before you know it your whole life has slipped by and you are still waiting there.

~ Tahir Shah

The rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.

~ Tahir Shah

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

Real terror is a crippling experience. You sweat so much that your skin goes all wrinkly like when you've been in the bath all afternoon. And then the scent of your sweat changes. It smells like cat pee, no doubt from the adrenalin. However hard you wash, it won't come off. It smothers you, as your muscles become frozen with acid and your mind paralysed by despair.

~ Tahir Shah

Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.

~ Tahir Shah

Once in a very long time you come across a book that is far, far more than the ink, the glue and the paper, a book that seeps into your blood.

~ Tahir Shah

When I am about to embark on a difficult journey, I comfort myself by reading the accounts of the great nineteenth-century travellers, men like Stanley, Burton, Speke, Burckhardt and Barth.

~ Tahir Shah

For me, a journey to Damascus is an amazing hunt from beginning to end, a slice through layers of history in search of treasure.

~ Tahir Shah

[T]hrough bitter experience I have learned that it is best to promise little and then to reward hard work with generosity.

~ Tahir Shah

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

~ Tahir Shah

A cross between a foreign legion boot-camp and a secret-society initiation ritual, the ordeals were grounded in pain. One thing was obvious: the agenda, which was dedicated to grave discomfort, had been drawn up by a passionate sadist.

~ Tahir Shah

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

Money spent on good-quality gear is always money well spent.

~ Tahir Shah

Close your senses and the imagination comes alive. It's inside us al, dulled by endless television reruns and by a society that reins in fantasy as something not to be trusted, something to be purged. But it's in there, deep inside, a spark waiting to set a touch-paper alight.

~ Tahir Shah

Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster.

~ Tahir Shah

Experience has taught me the power of trophies. You may have every knick-knack and useless contraption ever devised, but while they weigh you down, a simple trophy can go a long, long way.

~ Tahir Shah

Osman and Prideep had been in my employment for some weeks. Every Friday I would take the to lunch. It was the high point of their calender. During the meal I would harangue them as a reminder of what they had been hired for: but my orations never seemed to increase their output. I realised later that, in the East, a commitment to produce does not automatically accompany employment.

~ Tahir Shah

In India an explanation is often more confusing than what prompted it.

~ Tahir Shah

Believe, and what was impossible becomes possible what at first was hidden becomes visible.

~ Tahir Shah

On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.

~ Tahir Shah

The last thing we wanted was for the Machiguenga to be sad again. Sadness appeared to bring out their violence.

~ Tahir Shah

To Succeed, you must reach for the stars, and let your imagination find its own path

~ Tahir Shah

We had the kind of conversations that only great friends can ever share. They were touched with magic.

~ Tahir Shah

The very fact that a Frenchman was prepared, after tow minutes of conversation, to be so friendly towards anyone, especially one who had come from England, made me restless.

~ Tahir Shah

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.

~ Tahir Shah

Usually, there is nothing more pleasing that returning to a place where you have endured hardship.

~ Tahir Shah

The idea of my heart dancing with delight was far too good to pass up.

~ Tahir Shah