“ The world is plain rotten. People are mean, they're cruel, they're fake, they always pretend to be something their not. They're weak. They take advantage. A cruddy little man who sees God in a snake,… Paul Theroux
“ A slow feeling of gathering sadness as each familiar place flashes by the window and disappears and becomes part of the past. Time is made visible, and it moves as the landscape moves. Paul Theroux
“ I said I didn't think it would be a collectivist state so much as a wilderness in which most people lived hand to mouth, and the rich would live like princes - better than the rich had ever lived, exc… Paul Theroux
“ Many travelers are essentially fantasists. Tourists are timid fantasists, the others - risk takers - are bold fantasists. The tourists at Etosha conjure up a fantastic Africa after their nightly dinne… Paul Theroux
“ Even in Africa, I had never seen such a profusion of stars as I saw on these clear nights on Pacific isles - not only big beaming planets and small single pinpricks... but also glittering clouds of th… Paul Theroux
“ And yet on that bench at Jacobacci, I was glad I had left everyone else behind. Although this was a town with a main street and a railway station, and people with dogs and electric lights it was near… Paul Theroux
“ The larger an English industry was, the more likely it was to go bankrupt, because the English were not naturally corporate people; they disliked working for others and they seemed to resent taking or… Paul Theroux
“ Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind. 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 fin… Paul Theroux
“ The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, to make voluminous notes, to tell the truth. Paul Theroux
“ ...luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world. That is… Paul Theroux
“ The topography of literature, the fact in fiction,is one of my pleasures -- I mean, where the living road enters the pages of a book, and you are able to stroll along both the real and imagined road. 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. Paul Theroux
“ Nature is crooked. I wanted right angles and straight lines. Ice! Oh, why do they all drip? You cut yourself opening a can of tuna fish and you die. One puncture in your foot and your life leaks out t… Paul Theroux
“ I want to know the age. The sex. Most of all, the fingerprints. I'd like to identify who it is. After he had agreed, and I had left the office, walking to calm myself, I thought: And who am I? Please… Paul Theroux
