There are two worlds: the world of the tourist and the world of everyone else. Often they're side by side. But the tourist doesn't actually see how people live.
Paul TherouxYou think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time.
Paul TherouxI'm constantly running across people who have never heard of books I think they should read.
Paul TherouxWhat I find is that you can do almost anything or go almost anywhere, if you're not in a hurry.
Paul TherouxSo far I had been travelling alone with my handbook and my Western Railway timetable: I was happiest finding my own way and did not require a liaison man. It had been my intention to stay on the train, without bothering about arriving anywhere: sight-seeing was a way of passing the time, but, as I had concluded in Istanbul, it was an activity very largely based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.
Paul Theroux