Frasi di Paul Theroux

“Le Hawaii non sono uno stato della mente ma uno stato di grazia.”

“I viaggi che vale la pena di fare ti portano inevitabilmente, prima o poi, a dipendere dalla gentilezza degli sconosciuti, a metterti nelle mani di persone che non hai mai visto affidando loro la tua vita.”

“Non si può giudicare la gente dal loro paese: in Sud America, è spesso più saggio giudicare le persone per le loro qualità.”

“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.”

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

“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.”

“Cooking requires confident guesswork and improvisation-- experimentation and substitution, dealing with failure and uncertainty in a creative way”

“Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life.”

“travel [is] flight and pursuit in equal parts.”

“The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.”

“I cannot make my days longer, so I strive to make them better.”

“He regarded himself as an accomplished writer — a clear sign of madness in anyone.”

“You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back”

“You have to find out for yourself. Take the leap. Go as far as you can. Try staying out of touch. Become a stranger in a strange land. Acquire humility. Learn the language. Listen to what people are saying.”

“Death is an endless night so awful to contemplate that it can make us love life and value it with such passion that it may be the ultimate cause of all joy and all art.”

“Hawaii is not a state of mind, but a state of grace.”

“I have always disliked being a man. The whole idea of manhood in America is pitiful, in my opinion. This version of masculinity is a little like having to wear an ill-fitting coat for one's entire life (by contrast, I imagine femininity to be an oppressive sense of nakedness).”

“You define a good flight by negatives: you didn’t get hijacked, you didn’t crash, you didn’t throw up, you weren’t late, you weren’t nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.”

“The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.”

“I sought trains; I found passengers.”

“The trouble with cameras is that people see them a mile away.”

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

“The realization that he is white in a black country, and respected for it, is the turning point in the expatriate’s career. He can either forget it, or capitalize on it. Most choose the latter.”

“Assigning human personalities to animals is the chief trait of the pet owner—the doting dog-lover with his baby talk, the smug stay-at-home with a fat lump of fur on her lap who says, "Me, I'm a cat person," and the granny who puts her nose against the tin cage and makes kissing noises at her parakeet. Their affection is often tinged with a sense of superiority. Deer and duck hunters never talk this way about their prey, though big game hunters— Hemingway is the classic example — often sentimentalize the creatures they blow to bits and then lovingly stuff to hang on the wall.”

“Extensive traveling induces a feeling of encapsulation, and travel, so broadening at first, contracts the mind.”

“Even the most distant and exotic place has its parallel in ordinary life.”

“You must not judge people by their country. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude.”

“Photographers are failed painters.”

““Mustn’t grumble” was the most English of expressions. English patience was mingled inertia and despair. What was the use? But Americans did nothing but grumble! Americans also boasted. "I do some pretty incredible things” was not an English expression. "I’m fairly keen" was not American. Americans were showoffs — it was part of our innocence — we often fell on our faces; the English seldom showed off, so they seldom looked like fools.”

“Animal lovers often tend to be misanthropes or loners, and so they transfer their affection to the creature in their control.”

“In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there has been too much of) with ideas (of which there are too few. I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected.”

“Tightfisted people are as mean with friendship as they are with cash--suspicious, unbelieving, and incurious.”