It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.
PAUL THEROUXIt is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.
PAUL THEROUXWriting … is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.
PAUL THEROUXSomeone who seems doddery is perhaps not doddery at all but only an older person absorbed in squinting concentration, as though on an ultimate trip, memorizing a scene, grateful for being alive to see it.
PAUL THEROUX…a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.
PAUL THEROUXMy greatest inspiration is memory.
PAUL THEROUXFriendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It’s also about mutual help, not about exploitation.
PAUL THEROUXThe realization that he is white in a black country, and respected for it, is the turning point in the expatriate’s career. He can either forget it, or capitalize on it. Most choose the latter.
PAUL THEROUXOne of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.
PAUL THEROUXFiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.
PAUL THEROUXMark 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.
PAUL THEROUXIt is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is over certain of his plot.
PAUL THEROUXMen in their late 50s often make very bad decisions.
PAUL THEROUXYou can’t want to be a writer. You have to be one.
PAUL THEROUXOne of the cardinal principles of Buddhism, the principle of neglect.
PAUL THEROUXEven if I were traveling with you, your trip would not be mine.
PAUL THEROUXI don’t look down on tourism. I live in Hawaii where we have 7 million visitors a year. If they weren’t there, there would be no economy. So I understand why a tourist economy is necessary.
PAUL THEROUX