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" The people of Hong Kong are criticized for only being interested in business, but it's the only thing they've been allowed to do. "
Paul Theroux
Been
People
Only
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" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Travel
Life
My Life
" 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
Greatest
Mountains
Nile
" I'm constantly running across people who have never heard of books I think they should read. "
Paul Theroux
Think
Running
People
" 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
Done
Fun
Hate
" The idea of traveling in Africa for me is based on going by road or train or bus or whatever and crossing borders. You can't travel easily or at all through some countries. "
Paul Theroux
Train
You
Travel
" I feel as if my mission is to write, to see, to observe, and I feel lazy if I'm not reaching conclusions. I feel stupid. I feel as if I'm wasting my time. "
Paul Theroux
Feel
Time
See
" People who don't read books a lot are threatened by books. "
Paul Theroux
Read
Who
People
" The more you write, the more you're capable of writing. "
Paul Theroux
Writing
More
Capable
" 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
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Night
Good
Great
" To me, writing is a considered act. It's something which is a great labor of thought and consideration. "
Paul Theroux
Labor
Act
Writing
" 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
" 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
" A place that doesn't welcome tourists, that's really difficult and off the map, is a place I want to see. "
Paul Theroux
Place
See
Want
" 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
" People talk about the pain of writing, but very few people talk about the pleasure and satisfaction. "
Paul Theroux
Writing
Few
People
" I think there is only one way to write fiction - alone, in a room, without interruption or any distraction. "
Paul Theroux
Alone
Way
Think
" Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall. "
Paul Theroux
Lived
Different
Sales
" 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
Know
Father
Job
" 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
" One of the things the 'Tao of Travel' shows is how unforthcoming most travel writers are, how most travelers are. They don't tell you who they were traveling with, and they're not very reliable about things that happened to them. "
Paul Theroux
Reliable
You
Tell
" 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
" Many aspects of the writing life have changed since I published my first book, in the 1960s. It is more corporate, more driven by profits and marketing, and generally less congenial - but my day is the same: get out of bed, procrastinate, sit down at my desk, try to write something. "
Paul Theroux
Day
Life
Writing
" Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind. "
Paul Theroux
Feeling
First
Travel
" Winter is a season of recovery and preparation. "
Paul Theroux
Winter
Recovery
Preparation
" Movable type seemed magical to the monks who were illuminating manuscripts and copying texts. Certainly e-books seem magical to me. "
Paul Theroux
Seem
Who
Type
" Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Graham Greene - they influenced my life to a profound extent. "
Paul Theroux
Extent
Jack
Life
" 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 job of the travel writer is to go far and wide, to make voluminous notes, to tell the truth. "
Paul Theroux
Travel
Go
Notes
" 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