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

The forest did not tolerate frailty of body or mind. Show your weakness, and it would consume you without hesitation.

On a hard jungle journey nothing is so important as having a team you can trust.

Previous journeys had taught me the danger of taking too much stuff.

On a harsh expedition, there's no space for anyone who does not intend to finish.

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.

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.

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.

Searching for a lost city is a particularly European obsession.

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.

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.

The taste for glory can make ordinary men behave in extraordinary ways.

Any man who has ever led an army, an expedition, or a group of Boy Scouts has sadism in his bones.

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.

The rain of Madre de Dios is similar to that of the Amazon, but there is a petrifying aspect to it, as if it seeks to wound rather than to nurture.

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.

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.

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

Previous journeys in search of treasure have taught me that a zigzag strategy is the best way to get ahead.

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

The only thing they valued higher than ammunition were Man United footballs.

As I saw it, a little threatening was a good thing. It kept the men on their toes.

As I see the world, there's one element that's even more corrosive than missionaries: tourists. It's not that I feel above them in any way, but that the very places they patronize are destroyed by their affection.

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

A man who embarks on a journey must know when to end it.

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.

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.