Paul Theroux

“Africa is really a place for the wealthy traveler. It's got some nice hotels, but they're very expensive hotels. It doesn't really cater to the backpacker or to the overland traveler.”

“Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Graham Greene - they influenced my life to a profound extent.”

“Although I'm not fluent in sign language by a long way, I could have a fairly decent conversation.”

“The appeal of travel books is also the sense that you are different, an outsider, almost like the Robinson Crusoe or Christopher Columbus notion of being the first person in a new place.”

“Many aspects of the writing life have changed since I published my first book, in the 1960s. It is more corporate, more driven by profits and marketing, and generally less congenial - but my day is the same: get out of bed, procrastinate, sit down at my desk, try to write something.”

“An island is a fixed and finite piece of geography, and usually the whole place has been carved up and claimed.”