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I believe I have a sunny disposition, and am not naturally a grouch. It takes a lot of optimism, after all, to be a traveler.

Paul Theroux

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Paul Theroux
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: April 10
Film Writer
Novelist
Writer
Medford
Massachusetts
Paul Edward Theroux
Believe
Grouch
Grouches
Sunny
Traveler
Disposition
Optimism
Naturally
Takes

More quotes by Paul Theroux

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I think I understand passion. Love is something else.
Paul Theroux
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The Colombians are good-tempered people. They are used to waiting for buses that are late, used to riding buses and trains that do not arrive.
Paul Theroux
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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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...a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.
Paul Theroux
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Writing ... is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.
Paul Theroux
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Fogeydom is the last bastion of the bore and reminiscence is its anthem. It is futile to want the old days back, but that doesn't mean one should ignore the lessons of the visitable past.
Paul Theroux
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One thing about cold weather: it brings out the statistician in everyone.
Paul Theroux
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Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
Paul Theroux
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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.
Paul Theroux
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My love for traveling to islands amounts to a pathological condition known as nesomania, an obsession with islands. This craze seems reasonable to me, because islands are small self-contained worlds that can help us understand larger ones.
Paul Theroux
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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.
Paul Theroux
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The more you write, the more you're capable of writing.
Paul Theroux
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I hate vacations. I hate them. I have no fun on them. I get nothing done. People sit and relax, but I don't want to relax. I want to see something.
Paul Theroux
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Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in.
Paul Theroux
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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.
Paul Theroux
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The journey, not the arrival, matters the voyage, not the landing.
Paul Theroux
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The man who is tired of London is tired of looking for a parking space
Paul Theroux
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Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? “She drove me to my practice at four in the morning,” etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.
Paul Theroux
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When I started writing, I did have some idealised notion of my dad as a writer. But I have less and less of a literary rivalry with him as I've gone on. I certainly don't feel I need his approval, although maybe that's because I'm confident that I've got it.
Paul Theroux
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The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.
Paul Theroux