“Here is our rapin' cave. It's not much of a cave... and we haven't done much rapin'... but man, we've had some good times.”
“I spent thirty-three years in another man's shadow. I went everywhere he went, I helped him with everything he did. I was in a sense a part of him. When you live like that for a long time, you gradually lose track of what it is you yourself really want out of life”
Source: After the Quake
“Meandering cows, tenacious bicyclers, belching taxis, rickshaws, fearless pedestrians and the occasional mobile ‘cigarette and sweets’ stand all fought our taxi for room on the narrow two-lane road turned local byway.”
Source: Notes of a Naive Traveler: Nepal and Thailand
“In Thai, to say sorry was to ask for punishment that wouldn't ordinarily be meted out.”
Source: Bangkok Wakes to Rain
“A si predstavljaš? sem v prvi zarji še ves zjagan razpredal Romani. Steklenica viskija za pol dolarja in zjutraj nič ne boli glava! Pol dolarja in vsaj za dolar sem ga spil ...
Nekje sredi poti proti jugu pa sem planil čez njo, avtobusno okno se je odprlo le zgrda in komajda sem zvozil, da nisem bruhal po ubožici, vsej nedolžni in zgarani od polnočnih reportaž. Plačal sem vse za nazaj in čez mejo prilezel kot stara kuzla z ohceti; še dobro, da so me tako zdelenaga sploh spustili v nov državo...”
“Asia so degraded, so corrupted by the colonial era and by its own crowdedness that it can only choose between depravity and the puritan orgy of communIsm.
The women of Thailand are so beautiful that they have become the hostesses of the Western world, sought after and desired everywhere for their grace, which is that of a submissive and affectionate femininity of nubile slaves - now dressed by Dior - an astounding sexual come-on in a gaze which looks you straight in the eye and a potential acquiescence to your every whim. In short, the fulfilment of Western man's dreams. Thai women seem spontaneously to embody the sexuality of the Arabian Nights, like the Nubian slaves in ancient Rome. Thai men, on the other hand, seem sad and forlorn; their physiques are not in tune with world chic, while their women's are privileged to be the currently fashionable form of ethnic beauty. What is left for these men but to assist in the universal promotion of their women for high-class prostitution?”
Source: Cool memories
“Para peneliti menemukan bahwa orang, sekurang-kurangnya orang waras, jarang tersenyum ketika sendirian. Senyuman merupakan sebuah isyarat sosial lebih dari sekadar refleksi batin kita, sekalipun bisa juga berarti demikian.”
Source: The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World
“I ended up in the back seat of a chicken truck’s cab heading through beautiful scenery and disastrous roads to my hotel. About an hour later, we stopped to sell a few hundred of the chickens to a butcher shop.”
Source: Notes of a Naive Traveler: Nepal and Thailand
“No need for Jesus and the Lord Buddha to fight”
Source: Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind an American Housewife's Honest Love Affair with the Irrepressible People of Thailand
“When I left America I understood the formation of public opinion in Southeast Asia. I had had the best course possible, taught by a famous Asian expert. Two minutes at Chulalongkorn taught me that I might just as profitably have studied the zither.”
Source: Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind an American Housewife's Honest Love Affair with the Irrepressible People of Thailand