Dervla Murphy

apartheid still hangs in the air like a poisonous cloud left over from chemical warfare.

— Dervla Murphy

... strong bonds are forged in high emotional temperatures.

— Dervla Murphy

“Even a brief glimpse of what we were is valuable to help understand what we are”

— Dervla Murphy

hatred, however apparently justifiable, excusable or inevitable, always damages the hater.

— Dervla Murphy

Each human spirit is immortalfor time cannot destroy

— Dervla Murphy

poverty denotes a lack of necessities and simplicity a lack of needs.

— Dervla Murphy

Buying a bicycle is a momentous event, akin to marriage: you are acquiring a partner.

— Dervla Murphy

The Irish have a flair for wringing from death the last drop of emotion and they do not quite understand those who…

— Dervla Murphy

“I thank God for my sanguine temperament, which refuses to allow me to believe in disaster until it is finally manifest”

— Dervla Murphy

one of the advantages of cycling is that it automatically prevents a journey from becoming an Expedition.

— Dervla Murphy

On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as presents and a few days later I decided to cycle to…

— Dervla Murphy

Whatever the theologians might say about heaven being in a state of union with God, I knew it consisted of an infinite…

— Dervla Murphy

Is this something else our age does - on the one hand make communication easier than ever before, while on the other…

— Dervla Murphy

Undoubtedly the Afghans must be, by our standards, the best-looking people in the world. They have everything; height, proportions, carriage, features and…

— Dervla Murphy

“There has been a sustained and dreadfully successful campaign to make most people dissatisfied with what I would call the normal life…

— Dervla Murphy

Without evading the grimness of life in much of modern Africa, one can recognize that this continent is not yet sick as…

— Dervla Murphy

The more I see of life in these 'undeveloped countries' and of the methods adopted to 'improve' them, the more depressed I…

— Dervla Murphy

On my tenth birthday a bicycle and an atlas coincided as gifts, and a few days later I decided to cycle to…

— Dervla Murphy

the sudden violent dispossession accompanying a refugee flight is much more than the loss of a permanent home and a traditional occupation,…

— Dervla Murphy

There are two phases of enjoyment in journeying through an unknown country - the eager phase of wondering interest in every detail,…

— Dervla Murphy

[On Addis Ababa:] Among the city's handicaps are an immaturity for which no one can be blamed, as it was founded only…

— Dervla Murphy

I wonder if those experts who tell us that our sexual appetite is the strongest know what real thirst feels like; I…

— Dervla Murphy

“Certainly nobody in the large grubby restaurant 'wanted to know'. My two fellow-diners were truck drivers being eyed hopefully by five adolescent…

— Dervla Murphy

one feels guilty on behalf of Western civilisation. What damage are we doing, blindly and swiftly, to those races who are being…

— Dervla Murphy

... I know a number of Western children who would benefit greatly if only someone were primitive enough to inhibit the development…

— Dervla Murphy

Sunnis consider Shias a pack of unwholesome fanatics and Shias consider Sunnis a gang of lukewarm no-goods - there's nothing like religion…

— Dervla Murphy

It is far easier to explain to a three-year-old how babies are made than to explain the processes whereby bread or sugar…

— Dervla Murphy

This is a city of absolute enchantment in the literal sense of the word. It loosens all the bonds binding the traveller…

— Dervla Murphy

To me writing was not a career but a necessity. And so it remains, though I am now, technically, a professional writer.…

— Dervla Murphy

perhaps there is something more than courtesy behind the dissembling reticence of childhood. ... Most artists dislike having their incomplete work considered…

— Dervla Murphy

With our mad lust for Uniformity and a Higher Standard of Living and Expanding Markets, we go to a country like Afghanistan…

— Dervla Murphy