Paul Theroux

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

“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.”

“The wish to travel is a symptom of a deeper restlessness.”

“Delay and dirt are the realities of the most rewarding travel.”

“Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories.”

“Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with distance or the exotic. It is almost entirely an inner experience.”

“Luxury is the enemy of observation.”

“All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home.”

“Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.”

“A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.”

“Home is where you've been.”

“The man who is not afraid to say that he is afraid is a hero.”

“Writing is a lonely business. It's just you and the page.”

“Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.”

“How is it that the best things in life are free, but being alive is so expensive?”

“I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.”

“A travel book is a book that is a journey.”

“The best travel is a revival of promises.”

“Travel is a vanishing act, a solitary trip down a pinched line of geography to oblivion.”

“Being a writer is a solitary life. It's you and the page.”