Paul Theroux Quotes & Sayings (Page 9)

“I feel as if my mission is to write, to see, to observe, and I feel lazy if I'm not reaching conclusions. I feel stupid. I feel as if I'm wasting my time.”

“One of the things the 'Tao of Travel' shows is how unforthcoming most travel writers are, how most travelers are. They don't tell you who they were traveling with, and they're not very reliable about things that happened to them.”

“The moment that changed me for ever was the moment my first child was born. I was happy, filled with hope, and thought, 'Now I understand the whole point of work, of life, of love.'”

“The worst thing that can happen to you in travel is having a gun pointed at you by a very young person. That's happened to me maybe four times in my life. I didn't like it.”

“There are places that I've always wanted to go. First I went to Africa, and when I was there I realized there were places in Africa I really to wanted to visit: The Congo, West Africa, Mombassa. I wanted to see the deep, dark, outlandish places.”

“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.”

“My father had an invisible job outside of the house; I didn't know what he did. But my kids were privy to the ups and downs of a writer's life.”

“I think people read travel books either because they intend to take that trip, or because they would never take that trip. In a sense, as a writer you are doing the travel for the reader.”

“A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it, and has a hard time, and then comes back and writes about it. It's not about inventing.”

“I'm not pessimistic about Africa. The cities just seem big and hopeless. But there's still a great green heart where there's possibility. There's hope in the wilderness.”