Bruce Chatwin Quotations

The usual run of children's books left me cold, and at the age of six I decided to write a book of my own. I managed the first line, 'I am a swallow.' Then I looked up and asked, 'How do you spell telephone wires?

A journey is a fragment of Hell.

I will go to France, to Yugoslavia, to China and continue my profession. 'As sanitary engineer?' No, Monsieur. As adventurer. I will see all the peoples and all the countries in the world.

And the formation of man is the most pressing problem facing humanity.

Being lost in Australia gives you a lovely feeling of security.

I learned about Chinese ceramics and African sculptures, I aired my scanty knowledge of the French Impressionists, and I prospered.

It's an old sailor's idea that every ship has a rope with one end made fast to her bows and the other held by the loved ones at home.

Richard Lee calculated that a Bushman child will be carried a distance of 4,900 miles before he begins to walk on his own. Since, during this rhythmic phase, he will be forever naming the contents of his territory, it is impossible he will not become a poet.

Tyranny sets up its own echo-chamber.

Sluggish and sedentary peoples, such as the Ancient Egyptians-- with their concept of an afterlife journey through the Field of Reeds-- project on to the next world the journeys they failed to make in this one.