Paul Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar (1975)

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

Paul Theroux
The sad engineer would never go back to England; he would become one of these elderly expatriates who hide out in remote countries, with odd sympathies, a weakness for the local religion, an unreasonable anger, and the kind of total recall that drives curious strangers away.

Paul Theroux
I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it. Those whistles sing bewitchment: railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly level no matter what the landscape, improving your mood with speed, and never upsetting your drink.

Paul Theroux
Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.

Paul Theroux
The difference between travel writing and fiction is the difference between recording what the eye sees and discovering what the imagination knows. Fiction is pure joy — how sad that I could not reinvent the trip as fiction.

Paul Theroux
He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone.

Paul Theroux
A society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.

Paul Theroux
All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.

Paul Theroux
I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom.

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

Paul Theroux
Delay and dirt are the realities of the most rewarding travel.

Paul Theroux
You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time.

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

Paul Theroux
Indian enterprises seemed to work so well they produced disasters; success made them burst at the seams and the disruption of unprecedented orders led to shortages and finally failure.

Paul Theroux
Luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world.

Paul Theroux