Paul Theroux
Paul Theroux
Paul Edward Therouxis an American travel writer and novelist, whose best-known work is The Great Railway Bazaar. He has published numerous works of fiction, some of which were adapted as feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast, which was adapted for the 1986 movie of the same name...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 April 1941
CountryUnited States of America
contracts extensive feeling mind traveling
Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation; and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind
admire calendar clean cycling farms feeling fruit moment month move passed scenes swiss train urge villages
The train passed fruit farms and clean villages and Swiss cycling in kerchiefs, calendar scenes that you admire for a moment before feeling an urge to move on to a new month
africa apparently base camp encounters everest gorilla hoped known sort tour trip widely
The drug tour he had hoped would be unique, his own, ... was apparently a widely known trip down a well-traveled path, in the sort of full-color brochure that also described gorilla encounters in Africa and white-water rafting on the Ganges and treks to the Everest base camp and birding in Mongolia.
outlandish places realized west
There are places that I've always wanted to go. First I went to Africa, and when I was there I realized there were places in Africa I really to wanted to visit: The Congo, West Africa, Mombassa. I wanted to see the deep, dark, outlandish places.
mission reaching time wasting
I feel as if my mission is to write, to see, to observe, and I feel lazy if I'm not reaching conclusions. I feel stupid. I feel as if I'm wasting my time.
happened reliable shows travel travelers traveling writers
One of the things the 'Tao of Travel' shows is how unforthcoming most travel writers are, how most travelers are. They don't tell you who they were traveling with, and they're not very reliable about things that happened to them.
almost appeal columbus notion robinson travel
The appeal of travel books is also the sense that you are different, an outsider, almost like the Robinson Crusoe or Christopher Columbus notion of being the first person in a new place.
journals letters life work
Everything is fiction. You only have your own life to work with in the way that a biographer only has the letters and journals to work with.
people
You need to be on your own so that you can meet people as you are, and as they are.
written
I have written stories, essays, even whole books on trains, scribble-scribble.
loathe
I loathe blogs when I look at them. Blogs look, to me, illiterate. They look hasty, like someone babbling.
feed people
People see a hungry face, and they want to feed it; that's a natural response.
realized united
The place that interests me most, actually, is the United States. I've realized that I haven't traveled much in the States. There's a lot to see.
people traveling
You can't separate the people from the places - although I sometimes like traveling in places where there are no people.