American - Novelist | April 10, 1941 -
What strikes me about high-school reunions is the realization that these are people one has known one's whole life.
Paul Theroux
LifePeopleMeRealizationWhole
You leave the States, and you see people have bigger problems than you, much worse problems than you.
PeopleProblemsYouSeeLeaveWorse
The impulse to write comes, I think, from a desire - perhaps a need - to give imaginative life to experience, to share it with the reader, not to cover up the truth but to deliver it obliquely.
LifeTruthExperienceThinkDesire
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.
HopeHeartGreatGreenWilderness
A place that doesn't welcome tourists, that's really difficult and off the map, is a place I want to see.
WelcomePlaceWantMapDifficult
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.
LifeTravelMeGunMy LifeYou
A journey awakens all our old fears of danger and risk. Your life is on the line. You are living by your own resources; you have to find your own way and solve every problem on the road.
LifeJourneyRoadProblemYouFind
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.
TravelPeopleThinkDoingYouNever
I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist, but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
TravelFindingSayPlacesBackground
You can't separate the people from the places - although I sometimes like traveling in places where there are no people.
PeopleYouSometimesPlacesWhere
The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It's a passion. And I can't understand people who don't want to travel.
PassionTravelPeopleCuriosityWant
Africa is really a place for the wealthy traveler. It's got some nice hotels, but they're very expensive hotels. It doesn't really cater to the backpacker or to the overland traveler.
PlaceNiceAfricaExpensiveGot
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