"He did not think of himself as a tourist; he was a traveler. The difference was partly one of time, he would explain. Whereas the tourist generally hurries back home at the end of a few weeks or months, the traveler, belonging no more to one place than the next, moves slowly, over periods of years, from one part of the earth to another."
Book 1, Tea in the Sahara: Chapter 2, p. 7

"Tunner himself was an essentially simple individual irresistibly attracted by whatever remained just beyond his intellectual grasp."
Book 1, Tea in the Sahara: Chapter 8, p. 59

"No one's going to open the door." [Tunner] kissed her. Over and over in her head she heard the slow wheels on the rails saying: "Not now not now, not now not now ..." And underneath she imagined the deep chasms in the rain, swollen with water. She reached up and caressed the back...