Paul Theroux - People Quotes

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The conversation, like many others I had with people on trains, derived an easy candour from the shared journey, the comfort of the dining car, and the certain knowledge that neither of us would see each other again.

Paul Theroux
Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life.

Paul Theroux
People do not become writers out of healthy literary impulse, but out of a deep loneliness, a deficiency, a kind of dysfunction... and on the positive side, they turn to books for solace. It's all sorts of things. It's conceit. It's signalling for attention. People who are normal don't become writers.

Paul Theroux
The trouble with cameras is that people see them a mile away.

Paul Theroux
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.

Paul Theroux
You must not judge people by their country, a lady advised me. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude.

Paul Theroux
Reading alters the appearance of a book. Once it has been read, it never looks the same again, and people leave their individual imprint on a book they have read. Once of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.

Paul Theroux
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.

Paul Theroux
Tightfisted people are as mean with friendship as they are with cash—suspicious, unbelieving, and incurious.

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

Paul Theroux
Is there any point in going across the world to eat something or buy something or watch people squatting among their ruins? Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with distance or the exotic. It is almost entirely an inner experience.

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 do not arrive.

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 to mouth, and the rich would live like princes - better than the rich had ever lived, except that their lives would constantly be in danger from the hungry predatory poor. All the technology would serve the rich, but they would need it for their own protection and to assure their continued prosperity.

Paul Theroux
Painters paint outdoors, or in rooms full of people; they paint their lovers, alone, naked; they paint and eat; they paint and listen to the radio. It is a soothing way of doing your job.

Paul Theroux