The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia

by Paul Theroux

He was one of those colonial anomalies, more English than he cared to admit, but uneasy in the only country he understood.

He feels something is wrong because he has not learned the Indian habit of ignoring the obvious, making a detour to preserve his calm.

Mark Twain’s comment on Indians: “It is a curious people. With them, all life seems to be sacred except human life.”

what you hear influences—maybe even determines—what you see.

the difference between travel writing and fiction is the difference between recording what the eye sees and discovering what the imagination knows.