Paul Theroux quotes

Paul Theroux is an American novelist and travel writer, acclaimed for his vivid narratives and insightful explorations of foreign cultures. His celebrated works include "The Great Railway Bazaar" and numerous other novels and travel books. He has influenced generations of readers with his keen observations and evocative storytelling. Here are 93 of his quotes:

Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.

Paul Theroux

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

Paul Theroux

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

Paul Theroux

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

Paul Theroux

Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.

Paul Theroux

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

Paul Theroux

The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.

Paul Theroux

I cannot make my days longer, so I strive to make them better.

Paul Theroux

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

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

Paul Theroux

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

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.

Paul Theroux

Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.

Paul Theroux

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.

Paul Theroux

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

Paul Theroux

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

Paul Theroux

Photographers are failed painters.

Paul Theroux

Tightfisted people are as mean with friendship as they are with cash--suspicious, unbelieving, and incurious.

Paul Theroux

Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way.

Paul Theroux

I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness).

Paul Theroux

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.

Paul Theroux

Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter.

Paul Theroux