Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
A place that doesn't welcome tourists, that's really difficult and off the map, is a place I want to see. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed. — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
The place that interests me most, actually, is the United States. I've realized that I haven't traveled much in the States. There's… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
Africa is really a place for the wealthy traveler. It's got some nice hotels, but they're very expensive hotels. It doesn't really… — Paul Theroux Copy Share Image
“The topography of literature, the fact in fiction,is one of my pleasures -- I mean, where the living road enters the pages… — 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
There are two places that are hard to write about. A place like Britain, England in particular, which has been written about… — 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
The two impulses in travel are to get away from home, and the other is to pursue something - a landscape, people,… — 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
