Quotes by Delillo, Don

I think it's only in a crisis that Americans see other people. It has >>

Don't you realize that as long as you have to sit down to pee, you'll >>

There's always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelli >>

Quotations about Travel and Tourism

If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are e >>

Comes over one an absolute necessity to move. And what is more, to mov >>

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sens >>

To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don't cling to you the way they do back home. You're able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You're expected to be stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers acting stupidly. You walk around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps. You don't know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures of each other, haggard, dysenteric, thirsty. There is nothing to think about but the next shapeless event.

Delillo, Don