"Time moves inexorably forward and this process is irreversible. The list of countries that I managed to visit is increasing every year. There are still no sponsors and probably will not be. However, are they needed? Easily and just to do without someones help: it is necessary only, without feeling sorry for itself, to disdain money a little, to slightly ignore comfort and a cosiness and to believe very much in the forces even if... they are not present."
Victor Mykhailovych Pinchuk is a Ukrainian businessman, former politician and oligarch.
"On December 3, 2010, from the Nativity of Christ, with a small camping backpack behind my back, I left the house, running away from the routine of pale gray days, which look like twins in a morgue. In the backpack — a monthly supply of oatmeal, a metal bowl and a mug, in the passport — not a single visa, in the head — dreams, ideas and a vague future."
"An angel of heaven appeared to me in a dream: «I was sent by providence to warn you. Do know, lonely wanderer, that for everything you have done: traveling around the globe, books, photo exhibitions... you will be severely punished in old age! Nobody will give you even a mug of water…» — «Go away, depressive nerd bore.. — I interrupted the feathered one, — you utter banal phrases!"
"Any route, be it Africa, Asia, or the islands of Oceania, I go twice: the first time in reality, the second — when I write about it. Everything that happened: adventures, joys, problems — live now in my memoirs, travel notes, in the imagination of those who have read my books and articles. It will stay when I am gone into the world of shadows."
"Once, when I was a teenager, with a backpack behind my shoulders, in shabby clothes and a hat with wide fields, went down from the highest, as it seemed to me, Crimean mountains, to where in the lowlands rural children grazed a flock of sheep. The shepherd boys surrounded me from all sides, mistaking for a wanderer and started asking... I told them about the world trip, African cannibals, described aborigines traditions and much more. The chappies listened as enchanted, opening their mouths from amazement: they have never been beyond the neighboring village. However, the fifteen-year-old narrator in those days was not yet a traveler, I deceived them... and I also deceived you: this story is fiction."
"The teacher asked wards what the meaning of life was. They began to put forward versions. Only the failing student, sitting at the last desk, was silent, staring stupidly down. When the noise subsided a little, the teacher turned to him: «What do you think about this?» — «I do not think about what is not...» — answered dunce."
"Warm autumn day. The last hours and minutes of the outgoing Indian summer. The weather is wonderful. The sun gives warmth to everyone. Children play at merchandisers. Smiles of good people from billboards attract to buy a cockroach remedy. Male pensioners in trolleybuses give his sits to female pensioners. Traffic cop gives out invitations to a concert of police ditties. Somewhere in the yellowed foliage, a stupid starling sings his trills. And yet something is missing. Missing her. Inconceivable, but there were times when I could somehow do without Africa."