House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City Quotes

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Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

As the head of an expedition, you can't pussyfoot around being polite to everyone. You have to show your teeth once in a while; a little growling goes a long way.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

The quest for a lost city erodes your body, damaging you beyond all reason. But it is your mind that bears the heaviest toll. Listen to the doubters, the worriers and the weak, and the vaguest hope of success evaporates.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

Exploration is a dirty game.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

Through a strange kind of geographic arrogance, Europeans like to think that the world was a silent, dark, unknown place until they trooped out and discovered it.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

There are two ways to find a lost city. The first is to rely on luck alone, the second is to control all the information.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

Normally I would have been the first to go in search of cannibal monks, particularly as I had heard of a similar tradition at a nunnery in the Philippines. It's the sort of quest I can't resist.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

Only a man who has his health, a full stomach and wears clean clothes would ever entertain the notion of tracking down the greatest lost city on Earth.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

Previous experience had taught me that any expedition marches on its stomach.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

The situation was different in the jungle. Every inch of ground had to be earned, and was done so through much exertion with the blade.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

Running an expedition can bring out the worst in a man. It can make you a power-crazed monster.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

In some warped way, having an embalmed body with us made perfect sense.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

My journey to the land of the Shuar tribe had taught me the importance of practical gifts.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

The porters could always be coaxed to continue a little further through driving rain by the mere suggestion of a Pot Noodle at the end.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

If hot food is they key to maintaining an expedition's stamina, then low grade gut-rot alcohol is the key to sustaining its sense of pleasure.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

The ability to tell a good route from a terrible one is a valuable skill when leading an expedition. Unfortunately for us all, it was a skill I did not possess.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

Ours was not going to be a clone of the usual expeditions, oozing with sleekness. It was clear from the start that oddity was our advantage.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City

In the world of the Machiguenga, sadness could be equated with anger, and anger was a perilous emotion, by which a foreigner could lose his life.

House of the Tiger King: The Quest for a Lost City