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Paul Theroux


American
April 10, 1941
Novelist
pelmo dolomites alpine italy rock
Love doesn't last.


Paul Theroux
Tags: Love Last
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It is usually expensive and lonely to be principled.


Paul Theroux
dolomites mountains italy alpine
I am happy being what I am.


Paul Theroux
Tags: Being Am I Am
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The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.


Paul Theroux
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Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.


Paul Theroux
Tags: Mind State Grace
I think there is only one way to write fiction - alone, in a room, without interruption or any distraction.
Paul Theroux
I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.
Paul Theroux
Tags: You Like Still
It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Alone You Your
A gun show is about like-minded people who feel as if everything has been taken away from them - jobs, money, pride.
Paul Theroux
The place that interests me most, actually, is the United States. I've realized that I haven't traveled much in the States. There's a lot to see.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Me Lot Much
I hate vacations. I hate them. I have no fun on them. I get nothing done. People sit and relax, but I don't want to relax. I want to see something.
Paul Theroux
Tags: People Get Want
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.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Great Hope About
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.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Life Know Had
You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Good Food You
The appeal of travel books is also the sense that you are different, an outsider, almost like the Robinson Crusoe or Christopher Columbus notion of being the first person in a new place.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Travel You Like
The United States is a world unto itself. We have mountains, we have deserts, we have a river that equals the Yangtze River, that equals the Nile. We have the greatest cities in the world - among the greatest cities in the world.
Paul Theroux
My record was so bad that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Great Peace Only
I was raised in a large family. The first reason for my travel was to get away from my family. I knew that I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't want people to ask me questions about it.
Paul Theroux
I have always felt that the truth is prophetic, and that if you describe precisely what you see and give it life with your imagination, then what you write ought to have lasting value, no matter what the mood of your prose.
Paul Theroux
Writing was in my mind from the time I was in high school, but more, the idea that I would be a doctor. I really wanted to be a medical doctor, and I had various schemes: one was to be a psychiatrist, another was tropical medicine.
Paul Theroux
Tags: Time Medical More
People write about getting sick, they write about tummy trouble, they write about having to wait for a bus. They write about waiting. They write three pages about how long it took them to get a visa. I'm not interested in the boring parts. Everyone has tummy trouble. Everyone waits in line. I don't want to hear about it.
Paul Theroux
Tags: People About Get