442 Quotes by Paul Theroux

You may not know it but I’m no good at coping with all the attention in the luxury hotels I sometimes find myself in.

He regarded himself as an accomplished writer – a clear sign of madness in anyone.

You travel all over,” the woman said. “Do you write about your travels?” I said, Yes, I did. Articles. Books. Whatever. “You must write Paul Theroux-type travel books,” she said. I said, Exactly, and told her why.

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.

Tibet has a very proud people but it’s culturally gone and overrun ever since the Chinese took over. It’s like saving the rhino. When a species is endangered, it’s gone.

The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson’s on the main drag into maturity.

The sad engineer would never go back to England; he would become one of these elderly expatriates who hide out in remote countries, with odd sympathies, a weakness for the local religion, an unreasonable anger, and the kind of total recall that drives curious strangers away.

The man who is tired of London is tired of looking for a parking space.

Borges, who said, “Defeat has a dignity which noisy victory does not deserve.