Paul Theroux Quotes

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Paul Theroux

Profession : Novelist

Birth : April 10, 1941

Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It's also about mutual help, not about exploitation.

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.'

Paul Theroux

I am happy being what I am.

Paul Theroux

The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.

Paul Theroux

Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.

Paul Theroux

What draws me in is that a trip is a leap in the dark. It's like a metaphor for life. You set off from home, and in the classic travel book, you go to an unknown place. You discover a different world, and you discover yourself.

Paul Theroux

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

Paul Theroux

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.

Paul Theroux

Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.

Paul Theroux

A place that doesn't welcome tourists, that's really difficult and off the map, is a place I want to see.

Paul Theroux

It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.

Paul Theroux

There are two worlds: the world of the tourist and the world of everyone else. Often they're side by side. But the tourist doesn't actually see how people live.

Paul Theroux

Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter.

Paul Theroux

Fiction gives us the second chances that life denies us.

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.

Paul Theroux

People talk about the pain of writing, but very few people talk about the pleasure and satisfaction.

Paul Theroux

The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

Paul Theroux

There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.

Paul Theroux

I think that love isn't what you think it is when you're in your twenties or even thirties.

Paul Theroux

Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.

Paul Theroux