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

Paul Theroux

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Paul Theroux
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 10
Film Writer
Novelist
Writer
Medford
Massachusetts
Paul Edward Theroux
Destination
Nomad
Wander
Nomadic
Adventure
Travelers
Travel
Adventurer
Journey
Tourism
Going
Tourists
Traveler
Traveled
Backpacking

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There is no faster way of destroying a man, or mocking his ideas, than making him fashionable.
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You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.
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If people are driving you around to look at animals, that's wonderful. That's educational, but it's not necessarily enlightening and you're not finding out much about yourself.
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I think I understand passion. Love is something else.
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Everyone had an opinion and no one had a solution.
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Animal lovers often tend to be misanthropes or loners, and so they transfer their affection to the creature in their control.
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Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari Africans don't.
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I don't want to be the honored guest. I want to be the invisible person.
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I think most serious and omnivorous readers are alike- intense in their dedication to the word, quiet-minded, but relieved and eagerly talkative when they meet other readers and kindred spirits.
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The moment that changed me for ever was the moment my first child was born. I was happy, filled with hope, and thought, 'Now I understand the whole point of work, of life, of love.
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People write about getting sick, they write about tummy trouble, they write about having to wait for a bus. They write about waiting. They write three pages about how long it took them to get a visa. I'm not interested in the boring parts. Everyone has tummy trouble. Everyone waits in line. I don't want to hear about it.
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I don't look down on tourism. I live in Hawaii where we have 7 million visitors a year. If they weren't there, there would be no economy. So I understand why a tourist economy is necessary.
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I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.
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Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in.
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I grew up in an era of thinking of travel as escape. The idea that you could conceivably have a new life, go somewhere, fall in love, have little children under the palm trees.
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Travel is about failure or overcoming obstacles, overcoming failures. When a traveler is having lots of good luck, that is not a happy book. That's a book you say, well, I don't need that. I want a life lesson. I want to find out - I want a journey that reflects my life.
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Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life
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I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom.
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Going slowly [...] was the best way of being reminded that there is a relationship between Here and There, and that travel narrative was the story of There and Back.
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The journey, not the arrival, matters the voyage, not the landing.
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