Paul Theroux Quotes

• In Turkey it was always 1952, in Malaysia 1937; Afghanistan was 1910 and Bolivia 1949. It is twenty years ago in the Soviet Union, ten in Norway, five in France. It is always last year in Australia and next week in Japan.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Like a lower form of life, like the cross-eyed planarian or squashed amoeba, the sort of creature that can’t die even when it is cut to pieces.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• I went to Vietnam to take the train: people have done stranger things in that country.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Nothing happens in Burma, but then nothing is expected to happen.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• A society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Art
• 

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

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Travel, Tourists

• 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

  Topics in Death

  Tags in Travel

• You may not know it but I’m no good at coping with all the attention in the luxury hotels I sometimes find myself in.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Myself, Attention
• 

  Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Chance, Fiction

• You can’t write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When I write about my childhood I think, oh my God, how did I ever get from there to here? Not that any great thing has happened to me. But I felt so tiny, so lost.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn’t make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn’t make a phone call. So for six years I didn’t make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When I started writing, I did have some idealised notion of my dad as a writer. But I have less and less of a literary rivalry with him as I’ve gone on. I certainly don’t feel I need his approval, although maybe that’s because I’m confident that I’ve got it.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• When I left Africa in 1966 it seemed to me to be a place that was developing, going in a particular direction, and I don’t think that is the case now. And it’s a place where people still kid themselves – you know, in a few years this will happen or that will happen. Well, it’s not going to happen. It’s never going to happen.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Travel works best when you’re forced to come to terms with the place you’re in.

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  Paul Theroux

  Topics in Uncategorized

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

Paul Theroux (59)

Birth:	10th April, 1941
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Critic, Novelist, Writer

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Today's Anniversary - 29th March

Births

• 1967 - Michel Hazanavicius
• 1946 - Dennis Wolfberg
• 1927 - Martin Fleischmann
• 1831 - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
• 1936 - Richard Rodney Bennett

Deaths

• 1934 - Otto Hermann Kahn
• 1970 - Vera Brittain
• 1878 - Mark Hopkins Jr.
• 1982 - Nathan F Twining
• 2005 - Mitch Hedberg