442 Quotes by Paul Theroux

What I find is that you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you're not in a hurry.

Writers are painful friends, and they are seldom friendly with others. They are insecure in the presence of other writers. Composers of certain kinds of music are the same--tormented and intolerant. Yet some arts not only make the artist social but make him depend upon sociability in order to succeed. Painting is one.

The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume.

Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.

Painters strike me as having warm uncomplicated friendships and probably more natural generosity than the practitioners of any other art. Perhaps this is because painting is such a portable, flexible thing.

Painters paint outdoors, or in rooms full of people; they paint their lovers, alone, naked; they paint and eat; they paint and listen to the radio. It is a soothing way of doing your job.

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.

I don't think that it's possible to have a truly rewarding experience in travel if it's simple.

I think there is only one way to write fiction - alone, in a room, without interruption or any distraction.