- 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. - Paul Theroux
At my lowest point, when things were at their most desperate and uncomfortable, I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom. - Paul Theroux
Home is always the impossible subject, multilayered and maddening. - Paul Theroux
Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art. - Paul Theroux
Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going. Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. - Paul Theroux
In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed. - Paul Theroux
Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing. - Paul Theroux
...luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilizes you and prevents you from knowing the world. That is its purpose... - Paul Theroux
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. Those whistles sing bewitchment: railways are irresistible bazaars... Anything is possible on a train... - Paul Theroux
In travel, as in many other experiences in life, once is usually enough. - Paul Theroux
Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind. - Paul Theroux
Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. - Paul Theroux
Last days? Don't they know? These are the traits of all days, every day, everywhere. - Paul Theroux
If I read enough about one country I sometimes found that the intensity of the reading removed by desire to travel there. - Paul Theroux
Travel is only glamorous in retrospect. - Paul Theroux