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Home
Authors
Paul Theroux
American
Novelist
About the author
Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Pretty
#Writing
#Nerves
You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Food
The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Peace
#Maturity
Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Life
#Chance
#Fiction
Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Travel
Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Tourists
Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Feeling
#First
#Mind
#Traveling
#Travel
Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Will
#Being
#Gain
#Reputation
Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Grace
#State
#Mind
I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Lonely
The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Etiquette
The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Manners
#Rudeness
There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Being
#Development
#Irish
#African
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.
Paul Theroux,
American
Novelist
#Life
#Love
#Art
#Death
#May
#Cause
#Night
#Passion
#Value
#Joy