Paul Theroux Quotes - Page 5

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• Writers are painful friends, and they are seldom friendly with others. They are insecure in the presence of other writers. Composers of certain kinds of music are the same--tormented and intolerant. Yet some arts not only make the artist social but make him depend upon sociability in order to succeed. Painting is one.

  Paul Theroux

  Art, Insecure, Order

  Paul Theroux (2006). “The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain”, p.57, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is an intense but simple thrill in setting off in the morning on a mountain trail, knowing that everything you need is on your back. It is a confidence in having left the inessentials behind and of entering a world of natural beauty that has not been violated, where money has no value, and possessions are a dead weight. The person with the fewest possessions is the freest. Thoreau was right.

  Paul Theroux

  Morning, Simple, Journey

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• For years I felt that being respectable meant maintaining a sinister complacency, and the disreputable freedom I sought helped make me a writer.

  Paul Theroux

  Years, Complacency, Maintaining

  Paul Theroux (1986). “Sunrise with Seamonsters”, p.3, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I think most serious and omnivorous readers are alike- intense in their dedication to the word, quiet-minded, but relieved and eagerly talkative when they meet other readers and kindred spirits.

  Paul Theroux

  Thinking, Dedication, Serious

  Paul Theroux (2008). “Ghost train to the eastern star: on the tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar”

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• So far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.

  Paul Theroux

  Men, Istanbul, Sight

  Paul Theroux (1976). “The great railway bazaar: by train through Asia”

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• The difference between travel writing as 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

  Eye, Writing, Differences

  Paul Theroux (2006). “The Great Railway Bazaar”, p.350, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• One thing about cold weather: it brings out the statistician in everyone.

  Paul Theroux

  Weather, Cold, Statistician

  Paul Theroux (2014). “The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas”, p.50, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I can't predict how reading habits will change. But I will say that the greatest loss is the paper archive - no more a great stack of manuscripts, letters, and notebooks from a writer's life, but only a tiny pile of disks, little plastic cookies where once were calligraphic marvels.

  Paul Theroux

  Notebook, Reading, Loss

  "Fiction in the Age of E-Books". "The Atlantic" Interview, www.theatlantic.com. 2010.

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• I think I understand passion. Love is something else.

  Paul Theroux

  Passion, Love Is, Thinking

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• The pleasure a reader gets is often equal to the pleasure a writer is given.

  Paul Theroux

  Pleasure, Given, Equal

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• The people of Hong Kong are criticized for only being interested in business, but it's the only thing they've been allowed to do.

  Paul Theroux

  People, Hong Kong

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

  Paul Theroux

  Travel, Feelings, Mind

  Paul Theroux (2006). “The Great Railway Bazaar”, p.229, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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

  Travel, Upset, Bazaars

  Paul Theroux (2006). “The Great Railway Bazaar”, p.9, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• There is no faster way of destroying a man, or mocking his ideas, than making him fashionable.

  Paul Theroux

  Men, Ideas, Way

  Paul Theroux (2014). “The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas”, p.374, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.

  Paul Theroux

  Book, Slim, Volume

  Paul Theroux (2006). “The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific”, p.36, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I sought trains; I found passengers.

  Paul Theroux

  Found, Passengers, Train

  Paul Theroux (2006). “The Great Railway Bazaar”, p.10, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I don't think I've ever seen a person having a serious conversation on a cellphone. It's like a kiddie thing, a complete time waster.

  Paul Theroux

  Thinking, Serious, Conversation

  "I don't think there's genius in my writing". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2001.

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• Reading is also a journey. It's a process of discovery.

  Paul Theroux

  Reading, Journey, Discovery

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I greatly enjoyed Tom Reiss's The Orientalist, for its mingled scholarship and sleuthing, and for so elegantly solving the puzzle of one of the Twentieth Century's most mysterious writers.

  Paul Theroux

  Mysterious, Century, Scholarship

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• 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

  Knowing, Luxury, Feelings

  Paul Theroux (2012). “The Lower River”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• When I began to make some money, I really wanted to have a home.

  Paul Theroux

  Home, Wanted

  "I don't think there's genius in my writing". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. April 28, 2001.

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• Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.

  Paul Theroux

  Recovery, Winter, Preparation

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• One of the cardinal principles of Buddhism, the principle of neglect.

  Paul Theroux

  Buddhism, Principles, Neglect

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• 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

  Home, Men, Hemisphere

  Paul Theroux (2006). “The Great Railway Bazaar”, p.350, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A foreign swear-word is practically inoffensive except to the person who has learnt it early in life and knows its social limits.

  Paul Theroux

  Limits, Social, Persons

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