Paul Theroux Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“People say writing is really hard. That's very unfair to those who are doing real jobs. People who work in the fields or fix roofs, engineers, or car mechanics. I think lying on your back working under an oily car, that's a job.”

“I believe I have a sunny disposition, and am not naturally a grouch. It takes a lot of optimism, after all, to be a traveler.”

“I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.”

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

“Television cannot film corruption. Television cannot spend five days on a rattling railway train, talking endlessly. Television needs excitement, it needs an angle, it needs a 'sound bite.”

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

“Many small towns I know in Maine are as tight-knit and interdependent as those I associate with rural communities in India or China; with deep roots and old loyalties, skeptical of authority, they are proud and inflexibly territorial.”

“Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.”

“An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed.”

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