Quotes About Exploration

I grew up with a big backyard that led to the sand dunes of Lake Michigan.

I go to all the haunted houses that I can get my hands on, and I grew up in Michigan, where there are a lot of back-woodsy haunted attractions.

I've surfed on Lake Michigan.

I don't know which way I'm going. My next CD might be country, might be Dylan, might be Mick Jagger. I don't know. I love a challenge.

I thought to live on an island was like living on a boat. Islands intrigue me. You can see the perimeters of your world. It's a microcosm.

I always imagined myself sitting on a ship. Diving in, catching a fish, putting the fish under the microscope, looking at it, categorising it, catching an alien, and saving the world.

I read a great deal of science fiction with consummate pleasure between, say, the ages of 12 and 16. Then I got away from it. In my mid- to late 20s, I started trying to write it.

It was mid-life crisis time and you can't have more of a mid-life crisis than going off on a motorbike.

Reading serves as a good escape when you're in the middle of doing crazy things.

Oh, it's essential. I mean, you have to - if I'm writing about the Middle East, I have to go there, and if possible, stay long enough to get a real feeling for what's going on.

Every few months, I find myself in Europe or the Middle East.

Before I wrote 'God's War,' I probably did eight years of research into the Middle East, Judaism, Islam, Catholicisim, and all sorts of fabulous other things.

When I was 19 and at drama school, a couple of friends and I decided to drive from Guildford through France, down to the heel of Italy and then take a ferry to Greece - in an MG Midget. On our second day, in France, we were in a very bad accident and wrote off the car so we had to go home. But we then flew out instead and went island hopping.

I was happy in the midst of dangers and inconveniences.

I was a college dropout, hitchhiking across the Midwest. That was part of the old, adventurous spirit.

Milan, for me, is a city of discovery. You can find some amazing gardens behind some great houses; I also love finding beautiful galleries and incredible shops, but you have to explore. And the food is amazing.

When I was in Enschende, beside my apartment there was a field with cows grazing in it. Then, I'm in Milan and discover Fashion Week, the restaurants, the clubs and only beautiful women.

I've been interested in China ever since I was a kid. When I was a kid, I grew up in San Francisco about a mile from China Beach.

I have a horrible sense of direction. I could get lost a mile away from my house.

Most of my job is out in the wild, miles away from the public and it's nice to see people and hear what they like and don't like about the shows. It's really helpful.

I'd quite like to run the Great Wall of China. I've never been to China and there's something about the Great Wall of China that is so iconic and evocative. It's only 3,000 miles. It's not that far.

We're the roughest people in the way we play and live, and that is because Americans come from people who all got up one morning and went 5,000 miles, and that was a time in the 19th century when it wasn't so easy to do.

Over the years, I've covered 22,000 miles.

I went out to the desert where Cleopatra camped out with her mercenary army. It's a desolate outpost. Nothing has changed since her day. You realize how far she had to travel. Not only is it a good 150 miles against the current, you can't take a ship.