Paul Theroux
Paul Theroux
Paul Edward Therouxis an American travel writer and novelist, whose best-known work is The Great Railway Bazaar. He has published numerous works of fiction, some of which were adapted as feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast, which was adapted for the 1986 movie of the same name...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 April 1941
CountryUnited States of America
writing former-friends former
You can't write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend.
fall realizing resources
It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.
writing order unhappy
I know there are writers who feel unhappy with domesticity and who even manufacture domestic turmoil in order to have something to write about. With me, though, the happier I feel, the better I write.
thinking twenties
I think that love isn't what you think it is when you're in your twenties or even thirties.
life-and-death erotic rooms
Nothing to me is so erotic as a hotel room, and therefore so penetrated with life and death.
reality dirt delay
Delay and dirt are the realities of the most rewarding travel.
journey car people
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.
memories inspiration
My greatest inspiration is memory.
years tourists would-be
I don't look down on tourism. I live in Hawaii where we have 7 million visitors a year. If they weren't there, there would be no economy. So I understand why a tourist economy is necessary.
play actors invention
Sightseeing was ... based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.
matter no-matter-what visiting
All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting.
morning dark lakes
The long morning shadows lay as still and dark as lakes and patterned the rough ground with straight margins.
animal people tough-times
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.
patience people waiting
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.