Greg Davies Quotes

What gives value to travel is fear. It is a fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country, we are seized by a vague fear and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits. I look upon it more as an occasion for testing.

I'm insatiably curious about human nature.

All I know is that every time I go to Africa, I am shaken to my core.

I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.

For one who has an interest in the body as text, airports are treasure troves of information. It seems almost un-American to enjoy delays, and perhaps enjoy is not the best word, but certainly a delayed flight, if it does nothing else, allows one the opportunity to make prolonged observations about one's fellow travelers.

You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.

Every time I took a long leave from home, I felt as if I were going to conquer the world. Or rather, take possession of what is my birthright, my inheritance.

I'm a complete human being. I'm very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I'm a sociologist, anthropologist.

Leaving the house is a big enough occasion for me, so getting on a plane and flying across the world and playing to a room full of people is just out of this world.

Man's nature is not essentially evil. Brute nature has been known to yield to the influence of love. You must never despair of human nature.

I get depressed at airports.

I have learnt that I am incapable of packing the right amount of clothing, probably because I start 10 minutes before I'm supposed to leave, and that I truly hate airports.

I find traveling anywhere very stressful. If I ever have to go on tour, I tend to find it all a bit too stressful. I am too much of a control freak with traveling, and nothing is ever on time. The one thing I can't stand is being late.

I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea, and it would change things. That's a harmless conceit. With people, too, you constantly think, 'If I'm nice to people and treat them well, they'll appreciate it and behave better.' They won't, but it's still not a bad way to live.

Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.

It is better to travel well than to arrive.

One enlarges his circle of friends through contact with many people. One who limits those contacts narrows the circle and frequently his own point of view as well.

I do think that travel can be part of a journey of inner maturation, but you've got to do it right.

I learned so much about life and other human beings - then about myself.

I learned a lot about human nature. So much, in fact, that human nature will be my specialist subject on 'Mastermind'.

The joy of my heart is to 'study men, their manners, and their ways,' and for this darling object I cheerfully sacrifice every other consideration.

You meet people, and you're like, 'I don't know how I feel about you,' and someone does something surprising that changes your mind. We're interesting creatures; we're nuanced, complicated and layered, and we make all sorts of choices.

I loved going on the road... I think that's something everybody ought to experience one day - not necessarily as an artist, but just to get out and see the country.

The lesson of travel seems to be so banal, but so great, which is that people are just so amazingly decent the world over. Given the disparity of income and wealth, it's amazing not just that you don't get robbed everywhere - it's amazing you don't get eaten.

In [my] life ... I did not understand steam machinery, but I tried to understand that much more complicated piece of mechanism - man.