Sylvain Tesson

I already knew that one must never travel with books related to one’s destination; in Venice, read Lermontov, but at Baikal, Byron

The Romans built for the ages; a Russian just wants to get through the winter

When you have misgivings about the poverty of your inner life, it’s important to bring along good books to fill that void in a pinch. The mistake would be to choose only difficult reading on the assumption that life in the woods would keep your spiritual temperature at fever pitch, but time drags when all you’ve got for snowy afternoons is Hegel