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Writing … is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.

Paul Theroux

Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the trip. And so the travel writer is doing the traveling for you.
PAUL THEROUX

Book Order People
One 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 THEROUX

Book Pages Reading
I don’t think that it’s possible to have a truly rewarding experience in travel if it’s simple.
PAUL THEROUX

Experiences Reward Simple Thinking
I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I’d touched bottom.
PAUL THEROUX

Company Found Reminder
…a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.
PAUL THEROUX

Artist Country might People Society
It 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 THEROUX

Boredom Hero Novelists
I 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

Hawaii Look Years
You can’t want to be a writer. You have to be one.
PAUL THEROUX

Need Patience Writer
You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time.
PAUL THEROUX

Earth Secret Thinking
Animal lovers often tend to be misanthropes or loners, and so they transfer their affection to the creature in their control.
PAUL THEROUX

Animal Loner Lover
Even if I were traveling with you, your trip would not be mine.
PAUL THEROUX

Mine Travel Trip
Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.
PAUL THEROUX

Chance Fiction Giving Second
Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It’s also about mutual help, not about exploitation.
PAUL THEROUX

Help Helping Mutual Weakness
The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.
PAUL THEROUX

Book Slim Volume
Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.
PAUL THEROUX

Boston Childhood Maine
Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions.
PAUL THEROUX

Bad Decision Men

Writing … is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.

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Writing … is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.

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Popular Authors

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