Frasi di Paul Theroux

„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.“

—  Paul Theroux

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

—  Paul Theroux

Priva di fonte

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

—  Paul Theroux

Priva di fonte

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

—  Paul Theroux

New York Times (July 28, 1976).

„Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.“

—  Paul Theroux

“Paul Theroux, Restless Writer Of the Rails“ by Paul Hendrickson, Washington Post (September 20, 1979).

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

—  Paul Theroux

„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, libro Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Origine: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

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

—  Paul Theroux

Origine: Sir Vidia's Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents

„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.“

—  Paul Theroux, libro Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Origine: Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

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

—  Paul Theroux, libro The Great Railway Bazaar

Origine: The Great Railway Bazaar

„The measure of civilized behavior is compassion.“

—  Paul Theroux

Origine: Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

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

—  Paul Theroux

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

—  Paul Theroux

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

—  Paul Theroux

Variante: You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.
Origine: Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

„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).“

—  Paul Theroux

"Being a Man" (1983), from Sunrise with Seamonsters: Travels and Discoveries, 1964-84 (Houghton Mifflin, 1986, , 384 pages), p. 309.

„“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.“

—  Paul Theroux, libro The Kingdom by the Sea

The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around Great Britain, ch. 1 (1983).

„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.“

—  Paul Theroux

Living With Geese.

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

—  Paul Theroux

Living With Geese http://smithsonianmag.com/issues/2006/december/geese.php?page=1, Smithsonian Magazine (December 2006).

„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.“

—  Paul Theroux, libro The Old Patagonian Express

The Old Patagonian Express (1979)