Paul Theroux

One of the things the 'Tao of Travel' shows is how unforthcoming most travel writers are, how most travelers are. They don't tell you who they were traveling with, and they're not very reliable about things that happened to them.

I am happy being what I am.

The amount of hassle involved in travel can be overwhelming.

I like the idea of isolation, I like the idea of solitude. You can be connected and have a phone and still be lonely.

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

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.

Gain a modest reputation for being unreliable and you will never be asked to do a thing.

Winter is a season of recovery and preparation.

The travel impulse is mental and physical curiosity. It's a passion. And I can't understand people who don't want to travel.

My love for traveling to islands amounts to a pathological condition known as nesomania, an obsession with islands. This craze seems reasonable to me, because islands are small self-contained worlds that can help us understand larger ones.

Love doesn't last.

I think that love isn't what you think it is when you're in your twenties or even thirties.