Travel writer Paul Theroux's best quotes: 'There are three basic rules of travelling'

7. "Tipping confounds me because it is not a reward but a travel tax, one of the many, one of the more insulting. No one is spared. It does not matter that you are paying thousands to stay in the presidential suite in the best hotel: the uniformed man seeing you to the elevator, inquiring about your trip, giving you a weather report, and carrying your bags to the suite expects money for this unasked-for attention. Out front, the doorman, gasconading in gold braid, wants a tip for snatching open a cab door, the bartender wants a proportion of your bill, so does the waiter, and chambermaids sometimes leave unambiguous messages, with an accompanying envelope, demanding cash. It is bad enough that people expect something extra for just doing their jobs; it is an even more dismal thought that every smile has a price."

8. "The Australian Book of Etiquette is a very slim volume."

9. "Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories."

10. "What I liked in Aberdeen was what I liked generally in Britain: the bread, the fish, the cheese, the flower gardens, the apples. the clouds, the newspapers, the beer, the wollen cloth, the radio programmes, the parks, the Indian restaurants and amateur dramatics, the postal service, the fresh vegetables, the trains, and the modesty and truthfulness of people."

11. "My ideal town has mountains on one side, and the sea on the other, plus a recognisable commercial centre, great restaurants – and, all importantly, a beach. And Honolulu, which has the heart and soul of a small town, has all those things, not to mention a very salubrious climate, quite possibly the best in the world."

12. "The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness."

13. "The worst thing that can happen to you in travel is having a gun pointed at you by a very young person. That's happened to me maybe four times in my life. I didn't like it."

14. "The situation in Africa is as dire as ever, proving that money cannot solve Africa's problems. I am not even sure that aid agencies understand how they are part of the problem. It seems to me that a great number of the problems in Africa are due to bad leadership and megalomania on the part of the presidents or prime ministers. At the village level many Africans are amazingly self-sufficient."

15. "You must not judge people by their country. In South America, it is always wise to judge people by their altitude."

16. "You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you are grateful."

17. "The people of Hong Kong are criticised for only being interested in business, but it's the only thing they've been allowed to do."

18. "Most of the portraits of Niyazov all over Turkmenistan showed him smiling, though he never looked less reliable, or less amused, than when he was smiling. His smile – and this may be true of all political leaders – was his most sinister feature."

19. "The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown."

20. "Sightseeing, an activity that delights the truly idle because it seems so much like scholarship, gawping and eavesdropping on antiquity, flattering oneself with the notion that one is discovering the past when really one is inventing it, using a guidebook as a scenario of swift notations."

21. "A society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists."

22. "I'm not pessimistic about Africa. The cities just seem big and hopeless. But there's still a great green heart where there's possibility. There's hope in the wilderness."

23. "Travel works best when you're forced to come to terms with the place you're in."

24. "Delay and dirt are the realities of the most rewarding travel."

25. "Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life."

26. "Less frightening, but no less disgusting, is the Iranian taste for jam made out of carrots."

27. "Luxury is the enemy of observation, a costly indulgence that induces such a good feeling that you notice nothing. Luxury spoils and infantilises you and prevents you from knowing the world. That is its purpose, the reason why luxury cruises and great hotels are full of fatheads who, when they express an opinion, seem as though they are from another planet. It was also my experience that one of the worst aspects of travelling with wealthy people, apart from the fact that the rich never listen, is that they constantly groused about the high cost of living – indeed, the rich usually complained of being poor."

28. "You think of travellers as bold, but our guilty secret is that travel is one of the laziest ways on earth of passing the time."

29. "I hate vacations. I hate them. I have no fun on them. I get nothing done. People sit and relax, but I don't want to relax. I want to see something."

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

31. "There are few things more abrasive to the human spirit, even in Patagonia, than someone standing behind you chomping and sucking ice cubes."

The Telegraph, London