Best 40 quotes of Jane Wilson-howarth on MyQuotes

GPs are almost the only doctors these days who understand all problems, can see the whole person…spend time with the dying…see things through to the end.

I think of the irony that in our language [Nepali] the word for love can also mean deceit.

The Chinese say that there is no scenery in your home town. They’re right. Being in another place heightens the senses, allows you to see more, enjoy more, take delight in small things; it makes life richer. You feel more alive, less cocooned.

The few certainties in our existences are pain, death and bereavement.

Travel is a joy, full of surprises. Perhaps some of the most enjoyable times are those where one comes close to disaster: the risks add spice, and make for great stories when you are safely back home again.

a dementia sufferer effuses delight and notices very different things when taken out in her wheelchair. Such people can teach us to see again the little things that make a big difference. They can show us how to enjoy familiar environments with fresh new eyes.

All of a sudden there was a scampering sound. A small furry hand grabbed my food. The hand had fingernails just like mine, and they were just as dirty. The monkey-thief was fast. He didn’t even look back as he shot back up the tree to enjoy my lunch. Another rhesus monkey reached into my day-sack, and cantered away awkwardly with a bigger prize.

a Nepali outlook, pace and philosophy had prevented us being swamped by our problems. In Nepal it was easier to take life day by day.

A smile costs less than electricity, but gives more light than it!

A small, light object landed on my head. I looked around. Another small something hit me. I looked up. After a third thing hit me, I untangled a couple of deer droppings from my hair. It was spotted deer poop. I must be one of the only kids on the planet to recognise the sultana-like pellets of hares and deer and the boulders left by elephant and rhino. I heard a cackle behind me and turned to receive a handful of deer pellets full in the face.

Blood-coloured bottlebrush trees and scarlet hibiscus looked too bright for this devastated world.

Buddhist mantras are deliberately deep yet superficially meaningless - to take your mind off things

… everything was fresh, green and particularly beautiful. Afternoon light, filtering between remnants of monsoon clouds, picked out gullies and spot-lit patches of forest and scrub on the convoluted ridges of the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. Or, after a rainstorm, wisps of clouds clung to the trees as if scared to let go. Behind, himals peeked out shyly between the clouds.

getting angry and harbouring bitterness doesn’t help anybody, least of all the angry bitter person.

Good writers are like magpies, attracted to shiny things and storing away treasures - pieces of dialogue and experience - which pop up from memory unexpectedly.

... how could Britain operate in India for 300 years and take so little back from it in terms of understanding?

I like the way Nepalis point by pouting their lips; they reckon pointing with a finger is rude.

I love to escape to wild places – forests, mountains rivers or the sea. If that’s not possible, I flee into books; vicarious travel is rejuvenating

I reckon that blaming people fixes nothing. You're the only person who is going to sort you out. No-one else really can - or really cares, enough. That's what Nepalis know - better than anyone. That's our Western disease. Don't take responsibility. Take on a lawyer!

I was wrenched awake at the tail-end of a stifled scream. I fought my way up from a deep dark dream. The scream had been mine.

Living on the edge - that's what I feel like when I don't know what my bowels are going to do next.

Major Chhetri's pronouncement when we'd first arrived in Nepal came echoing back: "Things that start in the rain end well.

Morning mists skulked over the river.

Most moderately active children – as long as they have full stomachs – cope well with exotic experiences, but parents should get fit for their trip. Young children will expect their parents to be All Powerful so they would be wise to prepare properly and arrive with toned quads or they might not keep up on the slopes.

no-one would want to go through a traumatic experience but when you’ve survived something life-shattering and risen above it, you achieve a kind of serenity.

red-trunked rhododendron trees looked like so many writhing russet snakes. In some places the forest floor was carpeted crimson with fallen rhododendron petals.

Seeing human suffering changes you. It either makes you compassionate or it makes you hard.

Sunlight streamed through grumbling storm clouds that played like tiger kittens around the mountain ridges.

[the doctor] clicked by mistake on the notes of a patient she'd got to know well - too well. The unfortunate Mrs. Swayne had become unhealthily doctor-dependent. But had she grasped the nettle? Had she actually finally and against all predictions left the country?

the Lord Ratnasambhava keeps all his treasure inside mongooses. When the god needs his gems and jewels, he squeezes one mongoose and makes it vomit them up!

The mountains were so wild and so stark and so very beautiful that I wanted to cry. I breathed in another wonderful moment to keep safe in my heart.

Three mongooses, playing chase, burst out of the undergrowth and came galumphing across the track. The leader stopped and the other two bounced on him. There was a crazy bundle of squealing fur, ears, noses and tails. The mongooses broke apart. All three stood up on hind legs to look at us.

To some, having children may seem as conducive to travelling as having your feet set in concrete.

Travel experiences are emotionally loaded. Often there is excitement and stimulation. The tingle-factor though comes partly from the fact that we're stressed, just a little.

Travel is a joy, full of surprises and astonishing new experiences. Perhaps some of the most enjoyable times are those where one comes close to disaster; the risks add spice.

We'd incorporated Asia into our bones - its colours and laughter, its smells, its rhythms, its tolerance and patience, its compassion, its lack of ageism.

We found a smooth inviting boulder under a vast banyan tree, and sat in companionable silence. There unexpectedly, on that rock, I saw the secret of contentment. True happiness is only ever possible if you have been unhappy. And there, at that moment, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so peaceful. It wouldn’t have been possible for me to take in any more happiness. Moti turned to me and smiled as if she knew. I realised then that this moment and this wonderful feeling would sustain me for a long, long time.

when the press and problems of humanity become too much, I love to escape into books, where people are served up in digestible portions and can be pushed to one side when one is satiated.

When we reached the prayer flags and a pile of rocks that marked the highest point on the pass, the view was brilliant. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. To the south we could see rolling foothills: the gentle ups and downs that we’d walked through. Some of the hillsides were red or purple with rhododendron blossoms. To the west and east there was a muddle of ridges and spurs. To the north, there were several mighty snow-capped himals. The real Himalayan giants were mostly east of where we stood. We were a very long way from anywhere. We were a very long way from help.

Wherever there was a scrap of soil amongst the ravaged crags, emaciated trees struggled to cling on: a poignant metaphor for the way so many Nepalis eke out an existence, defiantly surviving on less than nothing.