People Quotes by Paul Theroux

What strikes me about high-school reunions is the realization that these are people one has known one's whole life.

— Paul Theroux

I'm constantly running across people who have never heard of books I think they should read.

— Paul Theroux

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

— Paul Theroux

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

— Paul Theroux

All politicians, even the most idealistic ones, are looking for money, sucking up to rich people.

— Paul Theroux

You need to be on your own so that you can meet people as you are, and as they are.

— Paul Theroux

You leave the States, and you see people have bigger problems than you, much worse problems than you.

— Paul Theroux

In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed.

— Paul Theroux

Tibet has a very proud people but it's culturally gone and overrun ever since the Chinese took over. It's like saving the…

— Paul Theroux

If people are driving you around to look at animals, that's wonderful. That's educational, but it's not necessarily enlightening and you're not…

— 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…

— Paul Theroux

The conversation, like many others I had with people on trains, derived an easy candour from the shared journey, the comfort of…

— Paul Theroux

I was raised in a large family. The first reason for my travel was to get away from my family. I knew…

— Paul Theroux

Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even…

— Paul Theroux

The Colombians are good-tempered people. They are used to waiting for buses that are late, used to riding buses and trains that…

— Paul Theroux

I think people read travel books either because they intend to take that trip, or because they would never take that trip.…

— Paul Theroux

People write about getting sick, they write about tummy trouble, they write about having to wait for a bus. They write about…

— Paul Theroux

Is there any point in going across the world to eat something or buy something or watch people squatting among their ruins?…

— Paul Theroux

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

When I left Africa in 1966 it seemed to me to be a place that was developing, going in a particular direction,…

— Paul Theroux

I never stay with people and I never look people up when I travel. I depend more on just chance meetings. The…

— Paul Theroux

Unless there is a strong sense of place there is no travel writing, but it need not come from topographical description; dialogue…

— Paul Theroux

The two impulses in travel are to get away from home, and the other is to pursue something - a landscape, people,…

— Paul Theroux

I said I didn't think it would be a collectivist state so much as a wilderness in which most people lived hand…

— Paul Theroux

The larger an English industry was, the more likely it was to go bankrupt, because the English were not naturally corporate people;…

— Paul Theroux

When you travel you realize how small you are. You need to be humble. You can't be a big, brash American. You…

— Paul Theroux

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

People see a hungry face, and they want to feed it; that's a natural response.

— Paul Theroux

People who don't read books a lot are threatened by books.

— 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

The people I've known who've done great things of that type - you know, building hospitals, running schools - are very humble…

— Paul Theroux

Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you…

— 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,…

— Paul Theroux

I hate vacations. I hate them. I have no fun on them. I get nothing done. People sit and relax, but I…

— Paul Theroux

The people of Hong Kong are criticized for only being interested in business, but it's the only thing they've been allowed to…

— Paul Theroux

Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the…

— Paul Theroux

You can't separate the people from the places - although I sometimes like traveling in places where there are no people.

— Paul Theroux

A gun show is about like-minded people who feel as if everything has been taken away from them - jobs, money, pride.

— Paul Theroux

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

Painters paint outdoors, or in rooms full of people; they paint their lovers, alone, naked; they paint and eat; they paint and…

— Paul Theroux