Paul Theroux

“Luxury is the enemy of observation.”

“Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.”

“Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.”

“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.”

“All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.”

“The wish to travel is a symptom of a deeper restlessness.”

“Writing is a lonely business. It's just you and the page.”

“I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.”

“Travel is a vanishing act, a solitary trip down a pinched line of geography to oblivion.”

“Being a writer is a solitary life. It's you and the page.”

“Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.”

“Delay and dirt are the realities of the most rewarding travel.”

“Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with distance or the exotic. It is almost entirely an inner experience.”

“Home is where you've been.”

“The man who is not afraid to say that he is afraid is a hero.”

“Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.”

“How is it that the best things in life are free, but being alive is so expensive?”

“A travel book is a book that is a journey.”

“The best travel is a revival of promises.”

“A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.”