Paul Theroux

Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.

— Paul Theroux

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

— Paul Theroux

The 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 Theroux

“Mustn’t grumble” was the most English of expressions. English patience was mingled inertia and despair. What was the use? But Americans did nothing but grumble! Americans also boasted. "I do some pretty incredible things” was not an English expression. "I’m fairly keen" was not American. Americans were showoffs — it was part of our innocence — we often fell on our faces; the English seldom showed off, so they seldom looked like fools.

— Paul Theroux

The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson’s on the main drag into maturity.

— Paul Theroux

I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness).

— Paul Theroux

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

— 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.

— Paul Theroux

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

— Paul Theroux

Fogeydom is the last bastion of the bore and reminiscence is its anthem. It is futile to want the old days back, but that doesn't mean one should ignore the lessons of the visitable past.

— Paul Theroux

I sought trains; I found passengers.

— Paul Theroux

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

— Paul Theroux

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

— Paul Theroux

Photographers are failed painters.

— Paul Theroux

The trouble with cameras is that people see them a mile away.

— 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.

— Paul Theroux

You must not judge people by their country. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude.

— Paul Theroux

Tightfisted people are as mean with friendship as they are with cash--suspicious, unbelieving, and incurious.

— Paul Theroux

In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there has been too much of) with ideas (of which there are too few. I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected.

— Paul Theroux

Even the most distant and exotic place has its parallel in ordinary life.

— Paul Theroux

You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying.

— Paul Theroux

Writing was in my mind from the time I was in high school, but more, the idea that I would be a doctor. I really wanted to be a medical doctor, and I had various schemes: one was to be a psychiatrist, another was tropical medicine.

— Paul Theroux

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

— Paul Theroux

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown..

— Paul Theroux