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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
Takes
Grouch
Believe
Grouches
Sunny
Traveler
Disposition
Optimism
Naturally

More quotes by Paul Theroux

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He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone.
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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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Even if I were traveling with you, your trip would not be mine.
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A novel captures essence that is not possible in any other form.
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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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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.
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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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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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Writing ... is practically the only activity a person can do that is not competitive.
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Railways are irresistible bazaars, snaking along perfectly level no matter what the landscape, improving your mood with speed, and never upsetting your drink.
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Men in their late 50s often make very bad decisions.
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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.
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Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.
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It is almost axiomatic that the worst trains take you through magical places.
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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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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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The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.
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Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with existence or the exotic. It is almost always an inner experience.
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The man who is tired of London is tired of looking for a parking space
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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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