“The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson's on the main drag into maturity.” PeaceMaturityDragJohnsonPeace Corps Book:Sunrise with Seamonsters Source: Sunrise with Seamonsters
“When I went to Hong Kong, I knew at once I wanted to write a story set there.” WritingStoriesWantedHong Kong Author:Paul Theroux
“You can't write about a friend, you can only write about a former friend.” WritingFormerFormer Friends Author:Paul Theroux
“You may not know it but I'm no good at coping with all the attention in the luxury hotels I sometimes find myself in.” KnowsMaySometimesAttentionLuxuryHotelCopingLuxury Hotels Author:Paul Theroux
“I know there are writers who feel unhappy with domesticity and who even manufacture domestic turmoil in order to have something to write about. With me, though, the happier I feel, the better I write.” KnowsFeelsWritingOrderUnhappyTurmoilDomesticity Author:Paul Theroux
“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. It's not about inventing.” WritingBookHardTravelHard TimesInventingTravel Books Author:Paul Theroux
“Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies.” PeopleWritingBookReadingFictionActivityTinyBuyingMinoritiesFiction Writing Author:Paul Theroux
“I can't predict how reading habits will change. But I will say that the greatest loss is the paper archive - no more a great stack of manuscripts, letters, and notebooks from a writer's life, but only a tiny pile of disks, little plastic cookies where once were calligraphic marvels.” LittlesI CanReadingLossHabitPaperLettersTinyPlasticCookiesNotebookManuscriptsArchivesReading HabitsDisk Author:Paul Theroux
“Literary life used to be quite different in Britain in the years I lived there, from 1971 to 1989, because money was not a factor - no one made very much except from U.S. sales and the occasional windfall.” YearsMadeDifferentUsedFactorsUsed To BeBritainOccasional Author:Paul Theroux