Anatomy of Restlessness Quotes

“[...] I will go to France, to Yugoslavia, to China and continue my profession.'
'As sanitary engineer?'
'No, Monsieur. As adventurer. I will see all the peoples and all the countries in the world.”
― Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings, 1969-1989

“Gradually the idea for a book began to take shape. It was to be a wildly ambitious and intolerant work, a kind of 'Anatomy of Restlessness' that would enlarge on Pascal's dictum about the man sitting quietly in a room. The argument, roughly, was as follows: that in becoming human, man had acquired, together with his straight legs and striding walk, a migratory 'drive' or instinct to walk long distances through the seasons; that this 'drive' was inseparable from his central nervous system; and, that, when warped in conditions of settlement, it found outlets in violence, greed, status-seeking or a mania for the new. This would explain why mobile societies such as the gypsies were egalitarian, thing-free and resistant to change; also why, to re-establish the harmony of the First State, all the great teachers - Buddha, Lao-tse, St Francis - had set the perpetual pilgrimage at the heart of their message and told their disciples, literally, to follow The Way.”
― Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings, 1969-1989

“The usual run of children's books left me cold, and at the age of six I decided to write a book of my own. I managed the first line, 'I am a swallow.' Then I looked up and asked, 'How do you spell telephone wires?”
― Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings, 1969-1989

“Evolution intended us to be travelers....Settlement for any length of time, in cave or castle, has at best been...a drop in the ocean of evolutionary time.”
― Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings, 1969-1989

“I never liked Jules Verne, believing that the real was always more fantastic than the fantastical.”
― Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings, 1969-1989

“in becoming human, man had acquired, together with his straight legs and striding walk, a migratory ‘drive’ or instinct to walk long distances through the seasons; that this ‘drive’ was inseparable from his central nervous system; and that, when warped in conditions of settlement, it found outlets in violence, greed, status-seeking or a mania for the new. This”
― Bruce Chatwin, Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings 1969-1989