442 Quotes by Paul Theroux

When I began to make some money, I really wanted to have a home.

You can't separate the people from the places - although I sometimes like traveling in places where there are no people.

I don't want to be the honored guest. I want to be the invisible person.

Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.

The traveler's boast, sometimes couched as a complaint, is that of having been an eyewitness, and invariably this experience - shocking though it may seem at the time - is an enrichment, even a blessing, one of the life-altering trophies of the road.

You leave the States, and you see people have bigger problems than you, much worse problems than you.

Travel magazines are just one cupcake after another. They're not about travel. The travel magazine is, in fact, about the opposite of travel. It's about having a nice time on a honeymoon, or whatever.

... the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.

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.