Walter Kirn Quotes

You can feel as brave as Columbus starting for the unknown the first time you enter a Chinese lane full of boys laughing at you, or when you risk climbing down in a Tibetan pub for a meal of rotten meat.

It was with deep interest that my companion and myself, both now about to see and examine the beauties of a tropical country for the first time, gazed on the land where I, at least, eventually spent eleven of the best years of my life.

China was the first time I truly felt like an outsider. I fell in love with the process of trying to become intimate with the culture.

The first time I went to New York, it was really exciting, and I thought, given half the chance, it would be nice to live there - the same with London.

Every time I come to Europe, I'm just as excited as I was my very first time, which was many, many years ago. I love that part of the world, and I especially love the fans.

My first time to Rome was when I was backpacking with my best friend around Europe for a month at 18 years old, so I remember that excitement of being away from home properly for the first time.

Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be.

When I went to Europe for the first time, I went to Paris and then to Venice. So after Paris, Venice was my first great European city, and it just blew me away.

Going to the U.A.E. for the first time was a real cultural shock. Everything was different. People didn't speak my language, it was all new, a huge change. But I loved it.

How can the moribund old man reason back to himself the romance, the mystery, the imminence of great things with which our old earth tingled for him in the days when he was young and well?

I was raised with opera and very white-bread folk music like The Kingston Trio. That was about as daring as it got. So when I discovered hip-hop as a teenager, at first it made no sense to me at all.

I've been lucky enough to travel widely. When you're based in Europe, it's very easy to go to Madrid or Budapest for the weekend. I also lived in Italy for ten years and now live in Ireland.

For my band's debut tour in 2011, we road-tripped across the country in a 15-passenger van. It was the first time I'd left Alabama. I drove through scenery I'd only ever seen in calendars: auburn leaves falling in Vermont, the sun setting over purple mountains in Arizona. It was incredible.

You really only understand whether a song's good or not when you properly play it out in public for the first time.

The first time I read something, I have this special feeling of being fully engaged with it. It's fresh to the audience because it's fresh to me. It's a little mystical, but I really believe that.

I remember going for the first time to a place called The Roxy in New York because you can see people breakdancing there. That's the only reason I went! It's amazing, kids are still doing that.

I'm a culture vulture, and I just want to experience it all.

I came to Venice for the first time in 1968 and was lucky enough to make the acquaintanceship, and then the friendship, of two Venetians, Roberta and Franco, who remain my best friends here after almost 50 years.

If art means as much to you as it does to me, or even if you're just exploring the art world for the first time, I invite you to turn off the boob tube, pry the Wii controllers from your kids' hands, and drag them to a museum.

I spent a college semester in a small town in Italy - and that is where I truly tasted food for the first time.

All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.

When I meet people for the first time, I'm friendly but shy. I'm much less outwardly nervous than I used to be, but I still get anxious sometimes.

I was pretty nervous when I met Robert DeNiro. I kind of felt like a kid in a candy store for the first time. I couldn't wipe the grin off of my face. But Bobby DeNiro was really, really sweet and made me feel very comfortable. He's very low-key and just a superstar professional, and totally someone to be admired.

I really enjoyed working on the 2009 film, 'Aliens in the Attic,' because it was shot in New Zealand and I got to visit there for the first time.

I didn't actually begin photographing, or even visit New York, for the first time until I was 26.