Reading liberates you. You could know about the world through reading. — 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
My love for traveling to islands amounts to a pathological condition known as nesomania, an obsession with islands. This craze seems reasonable… — 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
There are two worlds: the world of the tourist and the world of everyone else. Often they're side by side. But the… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Albania in 1994 was the strangest place I've ever seen. It was like walking into the looking glass: falling apart, paranoid people,… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The United States is a world unto itself. We have mountains, we have deserts, we have a river that equals the Yangtze… — 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
Japan, Germany, and India seem to me to have serious writers, readers, and book buyers, but the Netherlands has struck me as… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
There is an intense but simple thrill in setting off in the morning on a mountain trail, knowing that everything you need… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Connection" is the triumphal cry these days. Connection has made people arrogant, impatient, hasty, and presumptuous. ...I don't doubt that instant communication… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The United States is a world unto itself. We have mountains, we have deserts, we have a river that equals the Yangtze… — 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
