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" Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies. "
Paul Theroux
Book
Always
Writing
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" You leave the States, and you see people have bigger problems than you, much worse problems than you. "
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" There's books that are about places we will never go, and then there's books that inspire us to go. "
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" The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity. "
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Sort
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" People who don't read books a lot are threatened by books. "
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" I should start by saying that traveling in the States is a bit like traveling in Asia. You need it, it helps to have an introduction - that there is a certain network. "
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" The amount of hassle involved in travel can be overwhelming. "
Paul Theroux
Overwhelming
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Hassle
" Although I'm not fluent in sign language by a long way, I could have a fairly decent conversation. "
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" When I began to make some money, I really wanted to have a home. "
Paul Theroux
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" Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions. "
Paul Theroux
Late
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" To me, writing is a considered act. It's something which is a great labor of thought and consideration. "
Paul Theroux
Labor
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Writing
" 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. "
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" The job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, to make voluminous notes, to tell the truth. "
Paul Theroux
Travel
Go
Notes
" I think I understand passion. Love is something else. "
Paul Theroux
Passion
Think
Love Is
" Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Graham Greene - they influenced my life to a profound extent. "
Paul Theroux
Extent
Jack
Life
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Problem
Life
Road
" I was kind of raised with the suggestion that I had a duty to do; that life was real, life was earnest. And I hated that, actually. I needed to be liberated, to be told that I could live the life that I wanted to live; that I didn't need a job, or to be shouted at; that I could be myself; that I could be happy. "
Paul Theroux
Life
Job
Happy
" Everything is fiction. You only have your own life to work with in the way that a biographer only has the letters and journals to work with. "
Paul Theroux
Work
You
Everything
" Dentists seem to me very orderly, businesslike people who appear to become somewhat bored with the routine of their work after a period of time. Perhaps I'm wrong. "
Paul Theroux
Routine
People
Wrong
" A gun show is about like-minded people who feel as if everything has been taken away from them - jobs, money, pride. "
Paul Theroux
People
Feel
Money
" I do not want to be young again. "
Paul Theroux
Young
Want
Again
" My greatest inspiration is memory. "
Paul Theroux
Inspiration
Memory
Greatest
" I loathe blogs when I look at them. Blogs look, to me, illiterate. They look hasty, like someone babbling. "
Paul Theroux
Look
Someone
Like
" When I was in the Peace Corps I never made a phone call. I was in Central Africa; I didn't make a phone call for two years. I was in Uganda for another four years and I didn't make a phone call. So for six years I didn't make a phone call, but I wrote letters, I wrote short stories, I wrote books. "
Paul Theroux
Africa
Short
Phone Call
" 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
Fall
You
Nothing
" I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better. "
Paul Theroux
Strive
Days
Them
" I think I am typical in believing that the Peace Corps trained us brilliantly and then did little more except send us into the bush. It was not a bad way of running things. "
Paul Theroux
Believing
Bad
I Am
" An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed. "
Paul Theroux
Been
Geography
Up
" The people I've known who've done great things of that type - you know, building hospitals, running schools - are very humble people. They give their lives to the project. "
Paul Theroux
Great
Building
Humble
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Believe
I Believe
Optimism
" The two impulses in travel are to get away from home, and the other is to pursue something - a landscape, people, an exotic place. Certainly finding a place that you like or discovering something unusual is a very sustaining thing in travel. "
Paul Theroux
Landscape
Place
Travel