A travel book is about someone who goes somewhere, travels on the ground, sees something and spends quite a lot of time doing it, and has a hard time, and then comes back and writes about it. Its not about inventing. – Paul Theroux
Travel works best when youre forced to come to terms with the place youre in. – Paul Theroux
Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldnt say that Im a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels – and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places. – Paul Theroux
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. – Paul Theroux