The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.
Robyn Davidson
That arrogance of youth and that kind of ignorant confidence can get you through a whole lot of things, and then life does its stuff, and you get smashed around and beaten up. You get full of doubts, and you end up making a person out of those bits and pieces.
The agricultural revolution transformed the earth and changed the fate of humanity. It produced an entirely new mode of subsistence, which remains the foundation of the global economy to this day.
The desert is natural; when you are out there, you can get in tune with your environment, something you lose when you live in the city.
I love the desert and its incomparable sense of space.
Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Find out what you're capable of.
Camels are still trained in Alice Springs for tourist jaunts and for occasional sale to Australia's zoos.
The French word for wanderlust or wandering is 'errance.' The etymology is the same as 'error.' So to wander is to make mistakes. In other words, to make mistakes, to make errors is sort of the idea of learning through trial and error, allowing the mistakes to be part of the process.
In every religion I can think of, there exists some variation on the theme of abandoning the settled life and walking one's way to godliness. The Hindu sadhu, the pilgrims of Compostela walking past their sins, the circumambulators of the Buddhist kora, the haj.
There are worse things than being called 'the camel lady,' I suppose.
In 10000 BC, all human beings were hunter-gatherers; by 1500 AD, 1 percent were hunter-gatherers. Less than .001 percent of people are hunter-gatherers today.
The idea of finding things out, I hope that will stay with me until I drop.
I think a lot of writers are unrealistic about having their books translated into film.
Its highest point was The Worst Journey in the World. Then you see this decline, and this harking back, using the 19th-century form when we're not in the 19th century. That way of writing a book about the world out there - you just can't do it anymore.
You have to remember that I was an Australian girl of the Fifties and Sixties. For Australians at that time, it was imperative to get out of the country and discover the world.
I'm not one of those true writers who can't bear not to be writing. Yet it's one of the most important things in my life.
After thirty years of being 'the camel lady,' believe me: One becomes inured to the spotlight.
Much of the time I'm an introvert, by choice spending a lot of time on my own. I suppose liking my solitude is part of a writer's sensibility.
I think people are frightened by different things, so I don't see myself as particularly courageous.
As we've lost this idea of pilgrimage, we've lost this idea of human beings walking for a very, very long time. It does change you.
I do believe that the genre reached its peak before the First World War.
Of course, in India, I always said, 'Oh yes, I'm married.'
The truth is I'm not really interested in travel writing as it's generally conceived, and even less so in female travel writing.
Camels are wonderful animals. Witty, intelligent and sensitive.
During these last ten thousand years, we have made massive, unprecedented changes to the environment, creating problems for ourselves that we may not be able to solve.
Some of the best conversations I've had are sitting around a camp fire.
You can trick yourself into doing things by doing it one step at a time and never letting yourself see the overall picture.
If you think of all the enduring stories in the world, they're of journeys. Whether it's 'Don Quixote' or 'Ulysses,' there's always this sense of a quest - of a person going away to be tested, and coming back.
That odd idea that one person can go to a foreign part and in this rather odd voice describe it to the folks back home doesn't make much sense in the post-colonial world.
I do not mean to say that we should, or could, return to traditional nomadic economies. I do mean to say that there are systems of knowledge and grand poetical schemata derived from the mobile life that it would be foolish to disregard or underrate. And mad to destroy.
My own memories are packed tightly away. I very rarely bring them out for viewing.
At the age of 25, I gave up my study of Japanese language and culture at university in Brisbane and moved to the town of Alice Springs.
By taking to the road, we free ourselves of baggage, both physical and psychological. We walk back to our original condition, to our best selves.
If you are fragmented and uncertain, it is terrifying to find the boundaries of yourself melt.
You apply the skills you use to produce your own book to make an anthology. Shaping. Rhythm.
I just don't see myself as a travel writer. I can't. I don't.
You really can expand the boundaries of your life and do risky things and prove yourself by doing them.
I don't want to be bored; I don't want to be with someone I don't respect.
London sort of wore me down. I can't cope with the winters!
The genre has moved into this commercial aspect of itself, and ignored this extraordinarily rich literature that's filed everywhere else except under travel.
I try to factor solitude into my life because more and more, that's becoming a very precious and rare commodity.
I am very lucky: not very many writers can say they genuinely like the film of their book. However, I do.
It is always interesting being on films sets - I have done it before with other actor friends - and I just find it fascinating. I just love that collaborative film family that develops around a project.
As you get older, you do just get tired.
The romantic view would be that nomads are wonderful people, better than us; they care about the environment.
I'd always loved writing, in the same way that I'd loved painting. I wouldn't have seen it as a career.
Life's the adventure. You don't have to drop your bundle and go bush. It's about being brave within the context that you're in.
Never, never have a famous partner. It's too complicated.
I've chosen difficult men. But then I'm sure they'd say they'd chosen a difficult woman.
When I was young, I thought I wouldn't be a good mother. Now I think I would be, but I'm too long in the tooth.
