Burma Sahib Quotes

“…dazed by the fragrance of jasmine, the smells so much sharper in the dark.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“Writing was like that. Words were sticks and stones, the narrative was a symmetrical edifice, and if it was good it was golden.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“Lear’s Book of Nonsense.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“Because actions always had consequences, and consequences were the drivers of plots.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“Consequences were also helpful—consequences formed the essence of a plot.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“Blair thought, That’s how the empire will end, one-sided and rash, in a botched suicide, leaving India wrecked, Burma blinded.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“Drinking his tea, standing at the rail apart from the men, Blair thought, I am in charge, and smiled, and thought again, I am in charge, and frowned.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“Defender of the Faith. A simple silver one-rupee coin announced all the militancy of the Raj. He’d weakened, of”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“The empire was conscientiously Christian and uncompromising in religious matters. Law and life found their justification in the Bible, the king on all coinage was IND IMP—Emperor of India—and also FID DEF,”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“This scribbled page in the dining car represented a decision. He knew it was the right one, because he felt a sense of release. Writing—just that paragraph—made him happy.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“He crossed everything out but the title, stabbing at it with his pen—tosh. It was awkward, it didn’t scan, it was posturing. A poem demanded a certain affected voice, and a deliberate schoolboy struggle to shape it, pompous and orderly. How to put it plainly?”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“knickerbockers”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“way that girl twists her arms.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“In some way I can’t define, the whole life and spirit of Burma is summed up in the”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“The Burmese spelling book is the Thin-bone-gyi. The great basket of learning.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“sticketh closer than a brother.’” Sticketh, he thought—nice. “Is that a Karen saying?” “Proverbs, eighteen, twenty-four,” the man said and turned to gaze”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“A man that hath friends must show himself friendly, but there is a friend that”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“The poem would begin, I saw my corpse conveyed one day, in the luggage van to Mandalay . . .”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“The keenest pleasure in his life at the fort was retreating to his cubicle upstairs after dinner and immersing himself in his book, mentally going home.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“What a frightful tangle of lies one has to tell in order to be left alone.”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“maidan”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“baksheesh,”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“tessellated”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib

“revenant,”
― Paul Theroux, Burma Sahib