#PicoIyer

The Great Wall, established to keep out the world at large, was now being used to attract it.

— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 114)

Religion was a drug to some and and drugs were a religion to others. In Kathmandu some people lapsed into a narcotic haze and called it Buddhist serenity, while others had opiate dreams and called them visions. "Drugs" and "gurus," they told themselves, were almost anagrams; the high and the holy were virtual synonyms.

— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 83 - 84)

Innocence, I thought, could be its own protection; seeing no evil was halfway toward feeling no evil.

— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 51)

Only a special kind of person can remain for long in Paradise, making his peace with tranquility.

— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 51)

"mistakes can, in their way, be as revealing as epiphanies, and even a wrong impression may say as much about a place as a right one."

— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 28)

Every foreigner is a messenger from a world of dreams.

— Video night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (Vintage departures) (Page 16)