An intimate letter to a Stranger —Pico Iyer

“Writing is... that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.”
—Pico Iyer.

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”
― Pico Iyer

“A person susceptible to "wanderlust" is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.”
― Pico Iyer

“...home lies in the things you carry with you everywhere and not the ones that tie you down.”
― Pico Iyer, The Man Within My Head

“What more could one ask of a companion? To be forever new and yet forever steady. To be strange and familiar all at once, with enough change to quicken my mind, enough steadiness to give sanctuary to my heart. The books on my shelf never asked to come together, and they would not trust or want to listen to one another; but each is a piece of a stained-glass whole without which I couldn’t make sense to myself, or to the world outside.”
― Pico Iyer

“As Thoreau famously said, it doesn't matter where or how far you go - the farther commonly the worse - the important thing is how alive you are. Writing of every kind is a way to wake oneself up and keep as alive as when one has just fallen in love.”
― Pico Iyer