3 December 2020 Paul Theroux Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson’s on the main drag into maturity.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn’t say that I’m a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels – and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux It’s only when you’re alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux You define a good flight by negatives: you didn’t get hijacked, you didn’t crash, you didn’t throw up, you weren’t late, you weren’t nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux If you’re a misanthrope you stay at home. There are certain writers who really don’t like other people. I’m not like that, I don’t think.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it, and has a hard time, and then comes back and writes about it. It’s not about inventing.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It’s also about mutual help, not about exploitation.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux The moment that changed me for ever was the moment my first child was born. I was happy, filled with hope, and thought, ‘Now I understand the whole point of work, of life, of love.’
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux Travel works best when you’re forced to come to terms with the place you’re in.
3 December 2020 Paul Theroux The people of Hong Kong are criticized for only being interested in business, but it’s the only thing they’ve been allowed to do.
