Quotes from James Clarke

A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman of the next generation.

Ernest Hemingway said cycling was the best way to learn a country's contours because you physically experience them – you sweat up the hills and there's the sheer joy of coasting down the other side.

Canadian comedian, Emo Phillips, said he used to pray every night for a bike until he realised that the Lord doesn't always work that way, so he stole one and then prayed for forgiveness.

One thing about Italian drivers, they slow down when they see somebody sprawled in the road. We watched anxiously as Harvey remounted. It was, he said, essential to remount as soon as one can after being thrown because, first, it shows the bike who is boss and second, if you don't you will live in fear of bikes for the rest of your life and will want to climb up a tree whenever one comes near.

He felt the one experience sharpened the other. He said one feels one has earned a beer after cycling for a couple of hours and then the continued cycling afterwards gives one the satisfying feeling that one is working it off and will soon need another. In this way one can achieve a comfortable rhythm of exercise and relaxation getting neither fitter nor fatter.

Wildlife television programmes and their depiction of the African wilds and the creatures that inhabit them tend to give the false impression that elephants are friendly creatures (while they are indeed noble beasts, they are at best indifferent to our presence), and that you can cuddle lions and make pets of hyaenas.

the bicycle enabled more and more young men living in villages to court girls in distant villages thus giving a wider choice of mate and resulting in a more widespread and therefore richer human gene pool.

The Dordogne Valley is one long smorgasbord.