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

Paul Theroux

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Paul Theroux
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 10
Film Writer
Novelist
Writer
Medford
Massachusetts
Paul Edward Theroux
Peace
Corps
Howard
Johnson
Drag
Maturity
Main
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More quotes by Paul Theroux

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The more you write, the more you're capable of writing.
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Basically, what you find out is the limits of your patience and your strength and your capacity to adapt. You find that out in travel and being alone and being tested. So that's a great thing.
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Even if I were traveling with you, your trip would not be mine.
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To a lot of Africans, seeing an animal is a something of a rarity. So it's a paradox of this sort of parallel life. A safari is an expensive experience and it's adjacent to a place where people are having a very tough time.
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Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions.
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If you're a misanthrope you stay at home. There are certain writers who really don't like other people. I'm not like that, I don't think.
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My house is a place I have spent many years improving to the point where I have no desire to leave it.
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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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Writing ... is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.
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I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better.
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Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.
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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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I think I understand passion. Love is something else.
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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.
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Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It's also about mutual help, not about exploitation.
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Sightseeing was ... based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.
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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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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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The worst thing that can happen to you in travel is having a gun pointed at you by a very young person. That's happened to me maybe four times in my life. I didn't like it.
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