Now and then in travel, something unexpected happens that transforms the whole nature of the trip and stays with the traveler. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with existence or the exotic. It is almost always an inner… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The greatest justification for travel is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, to make voluminous notes, to tell the truth. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It's a passion. And I can't understand people who don't want to travel. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist, but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I was raised in a large family. The first reason for my travel was to get away from my family. I knew… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The worst thing that can happen to you in travel is having a gun pointed at you by a very young person.… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I should start by saying that traveling in the States is a bit like traveling in Asia. You need it, it helps… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Is there any point in going across the world to eat something or buy something or watch people squatting among their ruins?… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Because of my capacity for listening to strangers' tales, or the details of their lives, my patience with their food and their… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Travel magazines are just one cupcake after another. They're not about travel. The travel magazine is, in fact, about the opposite of… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The traveler's boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience - shocking though… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work,… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
“Many travelers are essentially fantasists. Tourists are timid fantasists, the others - risk takers - are bold fantasists. The tourists at Etosha… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I don't think that it's possible to have a truly rewarding experience in travel if it's simple. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Travel is about failure or overcoming obstacles, overcoming failures. When a traveler is having lots of good luck, that is not a… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Going slowly [...] was the best way of being reminded that there is a relationship between Here and There, and that travel… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Someone who seems doddery is perhaps not doddery at all but only an older person absorbed in squinting concentration, as though on… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly level no matter what the landscape, improving your mood with speed, and never upsetting your… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Travel books are all sorts - some are autobiographies, some are about falling in love. Some are about having great meals, some… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The appeal of travel books is also the sense that you are different, an outsider, almost like the Robinson Crusoe or Christopher… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
What draws me in is that a trip is a leap in the dark. It's like a metaphor for life. You set… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The difference between travel writing as fiction is the difference between recording what the eye sees and discovering what the imagination knows.… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
“...luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
A travel book is a book that puts you in the shoes of the traveler, and it's usually a book about having… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
One of the things the 'Tao of Travel' shows is how unforthcoming most travel writers are, how most travelers are. They don't… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
“Most people on earth are poor. Most places are blighted and nothing will stop the blight getting worse. Travel gives you glimpses… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
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… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
“Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I grew up in an era of thinking of travel as escape. The idea that you could conceivably have a new life,… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Basically, what you find out is the limits of your patience and your strength and your capacity to adapt. You find that… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I feel as if my mission is to write, to see, to observe, and I feel lazy if I'm not reaching conclusions. I feel… — Paul Theroux Copy Share
The larger an English industry was, the more likely it was to go bankrupt, because the English were not naturally corporate people; they disliked… — Paul Theroux Copy Share
Maine out of season is unmistakably a great destination: hospitable, good-humored, plenty of elbow room, short days, dark nights of crackling ice crystals. — Paul Theroux Copy Share
“sightseeing, an activity that delights the truly idle because it seems so much like scholarship, gawping and eavesdropping on antiquity, flattering oneself with the… — Paul Theroux Copy Share
Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari; Africans don't. — Paul Theroux Copy Share
In a way, Che Guevara's fate was far worse than Simon Bolivar's. Guevara's collapse was complete: his intentions were forgotten, but his style was… — Paul Theroux Copy Share
Pain does not create a long-lasting memory, but the memory of luxury exerts itself for ever. — Paul Theroux Copy Share
The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is… — Paul Theroux Copy Share
To a lot of Africans, seeing an animal is a something of a rarity. So it's a paradox of this sort of parallel life.… — Paul Theroux Copy Share
The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the… — Paul Theroux Copy Share
![“Going slowly [...] was the best way of being reminded that there is a relationship between Here and There, and that travel narrative was the story of There and Back.” quote by Paul Theroux](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/51d/paul-theroux-913_memorable_going-slowly-was-the-best-way-of-being-r_2149198.jpg)
