In many a piece of music, it's the pause or the rest that gives the piece its beauty and its shape. And I know I, as a writer, will often try to include a lot of empty space on the page so that the reader can complete my thoughts and sentences and so that her imagination has room to breathe.

Pico Iyer

Categorized in : Thoughts Beauty Imagination Music

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.

falling-in-love time travel

In an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitti... by Pico Iyer

In an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.

sitting-still movement age

And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it's a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.

best-love inspirational travel

With the war in Iraq, he [Dalai Lama] feels that the causes of that lie maybe hundreds of years ago, and he says, "What we do now may have consequences far into the future that we will never see."

war lying years

For if every true love affair can feel like a journey to a foreign country, where you can’t quite speak the language, and you don’t know where you’re going, and you’re pulled ever deeper into the inviting darkness, every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where you’re left puzzling over who you are and whom you’ve fallen in love with.

journey darkness country

Anybody who travels knows that you're not really doing so in order to move around - you're traveling in order to be moved. And really what you're seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you're sleepwalking through your daily life.

wall order moving

Making a living and making a life sometimes point in opposite dir... by Pico Iyer

Making a living and making a life sometimes point in opposite directions.

making-a-living opposites sometimes

I'm one of those perverse people who likes being alone. I always took myself to be a community of one. That's what I am comfortable with.

likes community people

Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think....In silence, we might better say, we can hear someone else think.

inspiration faith thinking

In an age of speed, I began to think nothing could be more exhilarating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.

sitting-still age thinking

Quitting, for me, means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn’t agree with you, but because you don’t agree with something. It’s not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in one’s journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting-whether a job or a habit-means taking a turn so as to be sure you’re still moving in the direction of your dreams.

giving-up dream jobs

That's the great advantage of being a foreigner: you're not paying your dues, but you are getting all the benefits.

foreigners advantage benefits

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to f... by Pico Iyer

We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves.

next this-world travel

Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our hab... by Pico Iyer

Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our habits.

leaving home travel

Adventure today means finding one's way back to the silence and s... by Pico Iyer

Adventure today means finding one's way back to the silence and stillness of a thousand years ago.

adventure mean years

Mr. Trump doesn't radiate many of the qualities I respect. But what do I know? I've never met Trump. I know he's savvy enough to change his tune according to his audience and I don't know very much at all about how government works.

quality government tunes

Home is not just the place where you happen to be born. Its the p... by Pico Iyer

Home is not just the place where you happen to be born. Its the place where you become yourself.

born happens home

The more internationalism there is in the world, the more nationalism there will always be, as people feel scared of the Other streaming into their neighbourhood and don't always know where to lay their foundations in a world on the move.

people world moving

Visiting a new town is like having a conversation. Places ask questions of you just as searchingly as you question them. And, as in any conversation, it helps to listen with an open mind, so you can be led somewhere unexpected. The more you leave assumptions at home, I've found, the better you can hear whatever it is that a destination is trying to say to you.

mind home motivational

I am simply a fairly typical product of a movable sensibility, living and working in a world that is itself increasingly small and increasingly mongrel. I am a multinational soul on a multinational globe on which more and more countries are as polyglot and restless as airports. Taking planes seems as natural to me as picking up the phone or going to school. I fold up my self and carry it around as if it were an overnight bag.

airports country school