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" 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
Solitude
Phone
Lonely
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" People who don't read books a lot are threatened by books. "
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" I don't think I've ever seen a person having a serious conversation on a cellphone. It's like a kiddie thing, a complete time waster. "
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Think
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" The more you write, the more you're capable of writing. "
Paul Theroux
Writing
More
Capable
" A place that doesn't welcome tourists, that's really difficult and off the map, is a place I want to see. "
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Place
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" 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. "
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Heart
Great
Green
" Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories. "
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" Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace. "
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Mind
State
Grace
" I am happy being what I am. "
Paul Theroux
I Am Happy
Am
Being
" People say writing is really hard. That's very unfair to those who are doing real jobs. People who work in the fields or fix roofs, engineers, or car mechanics. I think lying on your back working under an oily car, that's a job. "
Paul Theroux
Writing
Car
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" The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness. "
Paul Theroux
Made
Good Manners
Them
" 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
Shoes
Travel
You
" Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions. "
Paul Theroux
Late
Bad
Decisions
" When I began to make some money, I really wanted to have a home. "
Paul Theroux
Wanted
Home
Make
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Time
Back
Book
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Desire
Truth
Think
" Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it. "
Paul Theroux
Train
Maine
Boston
" You need to be on your own so that you can meet people as you are, and as they are. "
Paul Theroux
Meet
Need
Own
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Never
Travel
Think
" My house is a place I have spent many years improving to the point where I have no desire to leave it. "
Paul Theroux
Place
Leave
Improving
" I loathe blogs when I look at them. Blogs look, to me, illiterate. They look hasty, like someone babbling. "
Paul Theroux
Look
Someone
Like
" People see a hungry face, and they want to feed it; that's a natural response. "
Paul Theroux
See
Want
People
" Television cannot film corruption. Television cannot spend five days on a rattling railway train, talking endlessly. Television needs excitement, it needs an angle, it needs a 'sound bite. "
Paul Theroux
Corruption
Train
Talking
" When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there. "
Paul Theroux
Story
Once
Hong Kong
" I do not want to be young again. "
Paul Theroux
Young
Want
Again
" What draws me in is that a trip is a leap in the dark. It's like a metaphor for life. You set off from home, and in the classic travel book, you go to an unknown place. You discover a different world, and you discover yourself. "
Paul Theroux
Yourself
Me
Life
" If you're a misanthrope you stay at home. There are certain writers who really don't like other people. I'm not like that, I don't think. "
Paul Theroux
Home
Like
People
" Maine out of season is unmistakably a great destination: hospitable, good-humored, plenty of elbow room, short days, dark nights of crackling ice crystals. "
Paul Theroux
Destination
Short
Dark
" Because of my capacity for listening to strangers' tales, or the details of their lives, my patience with their food and their crotchets, my curiosity that borders on nosiness, I am told that anyone traveling with me experiences an unbelievable tedium, and this is why I choose to travel alone. "
Paul Theroux
Alone
Travel
Patience
" The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume. "
Paul Theroux
Etiquette
Volume
Very
" 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
Family
Travel
Questions