A person who is tired of London is not necessarily tired of life; it might be that he just can’t find a… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I don't think I've ever seen a person having a serious conversation on a cellphone. It's like a kiddie thing, a complete… — 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
Writing ... is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
I don't want to be the honored guest. I want to be the invisible person. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It's also about mutual help, not about exploitation. — 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
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
... Oceanic malaise. I never saw anyone reading anything more demanding than a comic book. I never heard any youth express an… — 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
Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four… — 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
