Quotes from Paul Theroux

Yet because curiosity implies delay, and delay is regarded as a luxury (but what's the hurry, anyway?), we have become used to life being a series of arrivals or departures, of triumphs and failures, with nothing noteworthy in between.

The whole point of adventure is that it is unplanned; a leap in the dark, verging on the unfortunate, offering glimpses of danger; and what separates adventure from disaster is that you live to tell the tale.

though the journalists who have done so have paid a heavy price, being targeted by the cartels.

The only sound was birdsong, soon overwhelmed by the headlong buzz of two Border Patrol officers on all-terrain vehicles, zipping past me much too fast on the flat paths, their big wheels tossing up damp sand.

An absence of gringos visiting the city meant that it was easy to find a taxi; they surrounded and implored me.

Don't write," he said, seeing me scribbling into my notebook, taking me for a journalist.

Strollers see more, and are more polite, than drivers.

the conceit of the long-distance traveler is the belief that he is going so far, he will be alone—inconceivable that another person has the same good idea.

book of Revelation

On the sunny day that I spent walking its streets I was reminded that Philadelphia (Mississippi) is still the headquarters of the Mississippi Klan. I easily found the headquarters and the free leaflets. ...It's a Klansman's responsibility to register to vote, campaign, and vote for conservative pro white candidates who will put America first and defend our nation's borders.

Don't write," he said, seeing me scribbling into my notebook, taking me for a journalist. "Periodista?" Diego asked. "Pensionado," I said. Retiree.

A recent survey concluded that 55.3 million Mexicans can be described as poor or destitute, this in a population of 127 million.

Lom mister,' he said, and winked at me. 'It's the CIA, isn't it? You're an agent, you tell people you're a journalist because that's good cover ...

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; sightseeing

if I promised to put my notebook on the floor and my pen in my pocket. And he suggested that I sit back and not gape out the window.

I had, under pressure, handed over bribes many times before.

Okay. But don't talk to anyone. No writing. No pictures. These people don't want their faces shown.

an avoidance of confrontation and a sustaining refuge in the comforts of family life.

an avoidance of confrontation and a sustaining refuge in the comforts of family life. The realization that everyone is in the same boat, under siege by bad government

So Walmart bribed Mexican officials to redraw the map in its favor, the map was published, and the big-box horror store was built, its obscene size swelling over the pyramids. But this was not the end.

Nothing moves in India without a bribe, and bribes had been demanded of me in China, Africa, Brazil, Pakistan, and Turkey. As I was seated in a cubicle in the immigration office of Ngurah Rai Airport in Denpasar, Bali, a frowning man in a uniform loomed over me and said, "Give me what I want or I put you on the next plane to Kuala Lumpur." (I gave him $120.) I'd had my wits about me in those places.

they claimed they were seeking political asylum (from the country known as "the world's biggest democracy").

tends to create the like-mindedness of sympathy helpful in making a community coherent. That families are intact, children are valued, and the elderly are respected

around the marshaling yards of the railway where I had embarked all those years ago, when this city had been raucous and sleazy, a frat boy's dream.