American - Novelist | April 10, 1941 -
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.
Paul Theroux
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The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, to make voluminous notes, to tell the truth.
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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.
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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.
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Writing is pretty crummy on the nerves.
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The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.
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I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.
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The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.
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Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions.
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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.
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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.
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Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in.
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