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
It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to the traveler who knows his route as… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Reading liberates you. You could know about the world through reading. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
A foreign swear-word is practically inoffensive except to the person who has learnt it early in life and knows its social limits. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I never stay with people and I never look people up when I travel. I depend more on just chance meetings. The… — 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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
You can't write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Pain does not create a long-lasting memory, but the memory of luxury exerts itself for ever. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
