31 Paul Theroux Quotes

Paul Theroux quotes

1. Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.

2. Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

3. The realization that he is white in a black country, and respected for it, is the turning point in the expatriate's career. He can either forget it, or capitalize on it. Most choose the latter.

4. 'Mustn't grumble' was the most English of expressions. English patience was mingled inertia and despair. What was the use? But Americans did nothing but grumble! Americans also boasted. 'I do some pretty incredible things' was not an English expression. 'I'm fairly keen' was not American. Americans were showoffs-it was part of our innocence-we often fell on our faces; the English seldom showed off, so they seldom looked like fools.

5. The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity.

6. Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.

7. 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.

8. Animal lovers often tend to be misanthropes or loners, and so they transfer their affection to the creature in their control.

9. Assigning human personalities to animals is the chief trait of the pet owner-the doting dog-lover with his baby talk, the smug stay-at-home with a fat lump of fur on her lap who says, 'Me, I'm a cat person,' and the granny who puts her nose against the tin cage and makes kissing noises at her parakeet. Their affection is often tinged with a sense of superiority. Deer and duck hunters never talk this way about their prey, though big game hunters-Hemingway is the classic example-often sentimentalize the creatures they blow to bits and then lovingly stuff to hang on the wall.

10. Fogeydom is the last bastion of the bore and reminiscence is its anthem. It is futile to want the old days back, but that doesn't mean one should ignore the lessons of the visitable past.

11. Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.

12. The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.

13. 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.

14. You must not judge people by their country. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude.

15. In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there has been too much of)with ideas (of which there are too few. I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected.

16. Even the most distant and exotic place has its parallel in ordinary life.

17. You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying.

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

2. “In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pinstriped suits, the best people are bare-assed.”

3. 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 stupid. I feel as if I'm wasting my time.

4. The larger an English industry was, the more likely it was to go bankrupt, because the English were not naturally corporate people; they disliked working for others and they seemed to resent taking orders. On the whole, directors were treated absurdly well, and workers badly, and most industries were weakened by class suspicion and false economies and cynicism. But the same qualities that made English people seem stubborn and secretive made them, face to face, reliable and true to their word. I thought: The English do small things well and big things badly.

5. Maine out of season is unmistakably a great destination: hospitable, good-humored, plenty of elbow room, short days, dark nights of crackling ice crystals.

6. You can't write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend.

7. The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.

8. Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari; Africans don't.

9. It is the simplest fact of Indian life: there are too many Indians.

10. Pain does not create a long-lasting memory, but the memory of luxury exerts itself for ever.

11. When I began to make some money, I really wanted to have a home.

12. Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions.

13. The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge for having been put on hold, or having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party's extension, being kept waiting all your working life - the homebound writer's irritants. But also being kept waiting is the human conditon.

14. 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. A safari is an expensive experience and it's adjacent to a place where people are having a very tough time.