43 Pico Iyer Quotes for You to Enjoy

Pico Iyer

Indian Writer

Born: Feb 11, 1957

Day Me Think Time World You

Related authors: Amitava Kumar Aravind Adiga Bharati Mukherjee Munshi Premchand Neel Mukherjee Om Malik Shakuntala Devi

In Japan, I live in a little neighborhood in the middle of nowhere. I don't have a bicycle or a car or anything, so my only movement is within the boundaries of my feet. I feel there's a need for that kind of conscientious objection to the momentum of the world. Pico Iyer

What I treasure most at any moment is intimacy, surprise, a sense of mystery, wit, depth and love. A handful of cherished friends offer me this, and the occasional singer or film-maker or artist. But my most reliable sources of electricity are Henry David Thoreau, Shakespeare, Melville and Emily Dickinson. Pico Iyer

Love Me Sense Intimacy Reliable Shakespeare Emily Emily Dickinson Mystery David Wit Most Singer Occasional Cherished Surprise Sources Handful Friends Offer Any Artist Depth Electricity Moment Henry Treasure

Nearly everybody I know does something to try to remove herself to clear her head and to have enough time and space to think... All of us instinctively feel that something inside us is crying out for more spaciousness and stillness to offset the exhilarations of this movement and the fun and diversion of the modern world. Pico Iyer

Time World Stillness Try Space Remove Think Enough Everybody Enough Time Herself Out Inside Something More Diversion Clear Head Feel Instinctively Know Crying Does Time And Space Offset Modern Movement Modern World Us Fun Her Nearly

Where you come from now is much less important than where you're going. More and more of us are rooted in the future or the present tense as much as in the past. And home, we know, is not just the place where you happen to be born. It's the place where you become yourself. Pico Iyer

Future Home You Yourself Important Become Past Born More More And More Tense Come Know Than Going Just Where Happen In The Past Place Us Much Rooted Less Now Present Present Tense

It's no coincidence that the word 'holiday' suggests a holy day, or that the longest book in the Torah concerns the Sabbath. If you wish to advance in any sphere, the best way is to take a retreat. Pico Iyer

The first time I stepped onto the rooftop of the Potala Palace in Lhasa in 1985, I felt, as never before or since, as if I was stepping onto the rooftop of my being: onto some dimension of consciousness that I'd never visited before. Pico Iyer

Time First Before Dimension Visited Some Onto Never Stepped Stepping Since Felt First Time Being Palace Consciousness

Travel for me is all about transformation, and I'm fascinated by those people who really do come back from a trip unrecognizable to themselves and perhaps open to the same possibilities they'd have written off not a month before. Pico Iyer

Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds. Pico Iyer

Sense Living Everybody Speeds Almost Dizzy Know Getting Information

I sometimes think that so much of our life takes place inside our heads - in memory or imagination or interpretation or speculation - that if I really want to change my life, I might best begin by changing my mind. Pico Iyer

Wherever we are, any time of night or day, our bosses, junk-mailers, our parents can get to us. Sociologists have actually found that in recent years Americans are working fewer hours than 50 years ago, but we feel as if we're working more. We have more and more time-saving devices, but sometimes, it seems, less and less time. Pico Iyer

Time Day Sometimes Parents Our Seems Bosses More More And More Feel Devices Hours Years Years Ago Than Get American Any Fewer Wherever Us Working Less Less Time Found Actually Recent Night Recent Years

I think one reason, obviously, that I spend so much time in one place is that I've been lucky enough to travel a lot, and now there are other different, invisible trains that are more interesting to me. Pico Iyer

'Globalization' has become the great tag phrase, but when we talk about it, it's nearly always in terms of the global marketplace or communications technology - either data or goods that are whizzing around. We forget that people are whizzing around more and more. On them, it takes a toll. Pico Iyer

Great Technology People Become Marketplace Phrase About Data More More And More Tag Takes Goods Global Talk Terms Globalization Around Always Forget Either Them Communications Toll Nearly

I've yet to use a cellphone, and I've never tweeted or entered Facebook. I try not to go online till my day's writing is finished, and I moved from Manhattan to rural Japan in part so I could more easily survive for long stretches entirely on foot, and every trip to the movies would be an event. Pico Iyer

Day Facebook Writing Try Long Finished Every Easily Entered Would Would-Be Rural Trip Entirely Online More Could Foot Never Part Till Go Survive Moved Manhattan Movies Japan Use Event

Contractions, 'U' for 'you' and the like are wonderful to make communication brief and efficient - but we wouldn't want all our talk to be only brief and efficient. Taking pauses out of language would be like taking the net away from a tennis game. Where would all the fun go? Pico Iyer

Movement is a fantastic privilege... but it ultimately only has meaning if you have a home to go back to. Pico Iyer

Home You Back Only Go Ultimately Privilege Movement Fantastic Meaning

In the two-room flat where I live in Japan, I try to take time every day to step away from the bombardment of e-mails and opportunities and papers around my desk, for an hour, and just sit on our 30-inch terrace in the sun, reading something sustaining, whether 'The Age of Innocence' or the latest by Colm Toibin. Pico Iyer

Time Day Age Every Day Opportunities Try Reading Sit Live Every Innocence Our Latest Sun Papers Something Take Step Hour Terrace Around Just Where Flat Sustaining Whether Japan Away Desk

More and more of us feel like emergency-room physicians, permanently on call, required to heal ourselves but unable to find the prescription for all the clutter on our desk. Pico Iyer

Our Unable Ourselves Find More More And More Physicians Feel Like Heal Call Permanently Clutter Us Required Prescription Desk

I'm no Buddhist monk, and I can't say I'm in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I've written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn't want or need, not all I did. Pico Iyer

Happiness Love Me Finals Say Out Some More Point Written Buddhist Missing Hour Print Renunciation Least Itself Article Did Want Decided Traveling Monk Need

I think the world is always going to be as diverse as it always has been. Pico Iyer

World Think Has-Been Diverse Always Been Going

I couldn't follow the events of September 11 because I was proofreading a novel I'd just completed - on Islam and its quarrel with the West - that I'd promised, six months earlier, to deliver to my editor on September 12, 2001. Pico Iyer

Events Islam September Completed Months Promised Follow Deliver Because Quarrel Editor West Six Just Novel Earlier

Alas, those six unfortunate souls who have made their way through my books know that every one of them is about Emerson and Thoreau and their dark counters, Melville and Emily Dickinson. Try as I might, I can't get their inspirations, their challenges and sentences and wisdom and questions out of my head. Pico Iyer

Wisdom Challenges Dark Try Made Every Books Way Those Out About Emerson Emily Emily Dickinson Inspirations Through Head Know Souls Questions Get Six Unfortunate Them Might Sentences Who Alas

There are literally Internet rescue camps in China and Korea to deal with children that are addicted. Internet disorder is maybe going to count as a psychiatric disorder in a couple of years. Pico Iyer

Internet Addicted Count Couple Deal Korea Years Camps Going Maybe Psychiatric Children Literally China Disorder Rescue

In financial terms, my sense is that the distribution of wealth, unequal as it is, is self-perpetuating, and, especially in a linked and accelerating world, the rich get ever more quickly richer while the poor get ever more speedily poorer. Pico Iyer

World Financial Wealth Sense Rich Speedily Distribution More Terms Accelerate Linked Quickly Unequal Get While Poor Poorer Richer Ever

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