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
attitude mind states
Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.
creative cooking kitchen
Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way
falling-in-love drinking book
A travel book is a book that puts you in the shoes of the traveler, and it's usually a book about having a very bad time, having a miserable time, even better. You don't want to read a book about someone having a great time in the South of France, eating and drinking and falling in love. What you want to read is a book about a guy going through the jungle, going through the arctic snow, having a terrible time trying to cross the Sahara, and solving problems as they go.
peace maturity drag
The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity.
gains reputation modest
Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.
thinking simple rewarding-experiences
I don't think that it's possible to have a truly rewarding experience in travel if it's simple.
rhinos people chinese
Tibet has a very proud people but it's culturally gone and overrun ever since the Chinese took over. It's like saving the rhino. When a species is endangered, it's gone.
travel adventure journey
Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.
inspirational funny travel
Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.
I am happy being what I am.
problem problem-solving worthwhile
There has to be a measure of difficulty or problem-solving in travel for it to be worthwhile.
reading world knows
Reading liberates you. You could know about the world through reading.
taken fate men
In a way, Che Guevara's fate was far worse than Simon Bolivar's. Guevara's collapse was complete: his intentions were forgotten, but his style was taken up by boutique owners (one of the fanciest clothes stores in London is called Che Guevara). There is no faster way of destroying a man or mocking his ideas than making him fashionable. That Che succeeded in influencing dress-designers was part of his tragedy.
second-chance giving fiction
Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.