Quotes from Bernard Ollivier

Esteem for those who travel, disdain for those who stay at home.

In the Islamic world, to welcome a traveler in one's home and treat him as best as possible is the believer's duty. To be hospitable (misafirperver), he explains, means that for you, a good Muslim, it is your duty to treat your guest (misafir), the traveler, with the utmost respect.

I still stubbornly crave fresh encounters, new faces, and new lives. I still dream of the faraway steppe, of wind and rain on my face, of basking in the heat of different suns.

Last year, for my first year in "retirement," I hiked one of the world's oldest roads: The Way of St. James of Compostela, from Paris to Galicia. Two thousand three hundred kilometers (1,430 miles) on foot, pack on my back like a donkey.

Solitary walking forces us to confront ourselves, freeing us from the limitations of the body as well as those of our usual environment that restrict us to conventional, acceptable, and prepackaged ways of thinking.

Prior to the days of the Soviets, a woman could be repudiated for any reason. Her jewels, inherited from her mother, were therefore her only worldly possessions and her sole safety net and source of independence, should she need it. So she always kept them on her person. Although repudiation is now a thing of the past, brides continue the tradition by donning all their jewelry for the wedding.

Were I to take these warnings seriously, I would immediately reboard the Samsun and go back the way I came. The only risk a tourist runs in Venice is having to pay too much for a cappuccino.

Those who want to die in bed and never stray far from it are already dead.

We are on entirely different journeys. They cross the country, they view it and take pictures of it . . . but never walk through its front door. Aren't I clever, bragging like this, telling myself that I, unlike them, am an authentic traveler!

Turkish drivers are maniacs.