442 Quotes by Paul Theroux

What could be crueler? I suppose the answer was: lots of things-an intellectual forced to shovel chicken shit, a Muslim forced to keep pigs, a physicist ordered to assemble radios, an historian in a dunce cap, a person beaten to death for being a teacher.

I told him to tell the truth,' Mr. Fang said. 'It is important to know the truth about the Cultural Revolution. Foreigners must be told. We must face the facts. It was a disaster ...

... nothing is more indicative of a war going badly than valiant propaganda ... Anything officially denied was probably a fact.

In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed.

Someone who seems doddery is perhaps not doddery at all but only an older person absorbed in squinting concentration, as though on an ultimate trip, memorizing a scene, grateful for being alive to see it.

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

There's always a way if you're not in a hurry.

The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.

- and the mocking realization that money was just colorful crumpled paper, hardly different from a candy wrapper, the market itself little more than a casino.