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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
Act
Writing
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" 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
" The place that interests me most, actually, is the United States. I've realized that I haven't traveled much in the States. There's a lot to see. "
Paul Theroux
See
Me
Place
" When I started writing, I did have some idealised notion of my dad as a writer. But I have less and less of a literary rivalry with him as I've gone on. I certainly don't feel I need his approval, although maybe that's because I'm confident that I've got it. "
Paul Theroux
Confident
Feel
Writing
" 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
" 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
" Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind. "
Paul Theroux
Feeling
First
Travel
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I think there is only one way to write fiction - alone, in a room, without interruption or any distraction. "
Paul Theroux
Alone
Way
Think
" 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 can't predict how reading habits will change. But I will say that the greatest loss is the paper archive - no more a great stack of manuscripts, letters, and notebooks from a writer's life, but only a tiny pile of disks, little plastic cookies where once were calligraphic marvels. "
Paul Theroux
Great
Change
Life
" Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in. "
Paul Theroux
You
Come
Forced
" The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It's a passion. And I can't understand people who don't want to travel. "
Paul Theroux
Passion
Curiosity
Want
" Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going. "
Paul Theroux
Travel
Know
Going
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Late
Grateful
Good
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Got
Nice
Place
" The moment that changed me for ever was the moment my first child was born. I was happy, filled with hope, and thought, 'Now I understand the whole point of work, of life, of love.' "
Paul Theroux
Hope
Work
Moment
" 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
" 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
" Love doesn't last. "
Paul Theroux
Love
Last
" I grew up in an era of thinking of travel as escape. The idea that you could conceivably have a new life, go somewhere, fall in love, have little children under the palm trees. "
Paul Theroux
Children
Travel
Love
" People who don't read books a lot are threatened by books. "
Paul Theroux
Read
Who
People
" 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
" 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. "
Paul Theroux
Waiting
Wait
Sick
" The appeal of travel books is also the sense that you are different, an outsider, almost like the Robinson Crusoe or Christopher Columbus notion of being the first person in a new place. "
Paul Theroux
Place
Travel
Columbus
" My record was so bad that I was first rejected by the Peace Corps as a poor risk and possible troublemaker and was accepted as a volunteer only after a great deal of explaining and arguing. "
Paul Theroux
Bad
Volunteer
Risk
" One of my fears is not writing. I don't know how to do anything else. "
Paul Theroux
Know
Fears
Anything
" The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity. "
Paul Theroux
Sort
Peace Corps
Peace
" Maine is a joy in the summer. But the soul of Maine is more apparent in the winter. "
Paul Theroux
Summer
Winter
Soul