J. Maarten Troost Quotes

Most memorable quotes from J. Maarten Troost.

J. Maarten Troost Famous Quotes

Reading J. Maarten Troost quotes, download and share images of famous quotes by J. Maarten Troost. Righ click to see or save pictures of J. Maarten Troost quotes that you can use as your wallpaper for free.

Don't get me wrong. Sacramento is a lovely place, particularly for those with a fondness for methamphetamines. For the meth-addled, Sacramento had conveniently placed a Greyhound bus station just yards from the statehouse where Austria's finest was sworn in as governor of the great state of California.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Don't get me wrong. Sacramento
I had, of course, witnessed hundreds of people in a casino before, mindlessly dropping coins into slot machines. They don't play for money in America. It's true. The big payout is incidental to most gamblers. It's the numbness they're after. Not so in China. No one had that look of glazed stupor often found in American casinos.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: I had, of course, witnessed
I made arrangements with Bitaki, a teammate on the soccer team I played with, to go fishing with his brothers, who typically worked the waters off Maiana, the nearest island south of Tarawa. When I mentioned to Sylvia that I was going, she said: "No, you're not." "And what do you mean by 'No, you're not'?" I determined right then that I would go out fishing every week. No, every day. I would become a professional fisherman. I would become sun-browned and sea-weathered. I would smell like fish. I would be a Salty Dog. "I mean," Sylvia said, "that when the engine dies and you start drifting, which will happen, because things like that do seem to happen to you, you will not survive two days. Your skin will fry, you will collapse from dehydration, and because you will be the most useless person on the boat, you will be regarded by the others as a potential food source." I didn't like the imagery here.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: I made arrangements with Bitaki,
Personally I regard idling as a virtue, but civilized society holds otherwise.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Personally I regard idling as
No one who claims this to be a small world has ever flown across the Pacific.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: No one who claims this
It was, to reiterate, to stress, to accentuate the point, to leave no doubt, hot.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: It was, to reiterate, to
It was as if the sensory overload that is American life had somehow led to sensory deprivation, a gilded weariness, where everything is permitted and nothing appreciated.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: It was as if the
It is an unfortunate reality for innate idlers that our modern world requires one to hold a job to maintain a sustainable existence. Idling, I find, if immensely underrated, even vilified by some who see inactivity as the gateway for the Evil One.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: It is an unfortunate reality
We don't think much about climate change and rising sea levels here in the U.S. Beyond a few gardeners, birders and hikers who notice the changes in our own ecosystem, we live on, blissfully unaware of our changing Earth. Our storms - Katrina, Sandy - are dismissed as once-in-a-century events.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: We don't think much about
There's a reason that there are oodles of young Aussies, Germans, Japanese, even Chinese backpackers traipsing around the world. They are unencumbered by debilitating student loans. No such luck for the American Theater Arts major with $120,000 in loans.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: There's a reason that there
It is a remarkably easy thing to do, pointing out the faults of others and suggesting remedies or courses of action in an argumentative and pedantic sort of way, and I am still amazed that there are many people in the American media who are paid very big money to do this.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: It is a remarkably easy
Nevertheless, while I may not have completely understood what Holy Communion was all about, Catholicism did allow me to see the nuances in cannibalism. Eating the flesh of another human being, I understood, might not always be a really, really bad thing to do. If you were a good Catholic, you had some every Sunday.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Nevertheless, while I may not
You can read and read, but nothing eclipses experience.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: You can read and read,
I'm off to an island nation where formal wear consists of a leaf tired around a penis.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: I'm off to an island
Like many air travelers, I am aware that airplanes fly aided by capricious fairies and invisible strings.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Like many air travelers, I
Escapism, we are led to believe, is evidence of a deficiency in character, a certain failure of temperament, and like so many -isms, it is to be strenuously avoided. 'How do you expect to get ahead?,' people ask. But the question altogether misses the point. The escapist doesn't want to get ahead. He simply wants to get away.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Escapism, we are led to
Fortunately, due to a terrible misunderstanding, I soon found myself working as a consultant to the World Bank. I am not exactly sure what it was that led the World Bank to believe I had any expertise in infrastructure finance. I had never even balanced a checkbook. I hadn't even tried. There is not much reason to balance a checkbook when your checking account rarely tops the three-figure mark. And so, to the Third World countries who had the misfortune of working with me on their infrastructure projects, I wish to apologize.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Fortunately, due to a terrible
When it comes to naming things, vanity and flattery are dull motivations best suited for deciding on a child's middle name. Much more interesting are the descriptive names that suggest a story or happening of interest.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: When it comes to naming
The longer we spent on Tarawa the more Sylvia and I came to realize that to live on Tarawa is to experience a visceral form of bipolar disorder. There is the ecstatic high, when you find yourself swept away in a lagoonside maneaba rumbling to the frenzied singing and dancing of hundreds of rapturous islanders. And there are the crushing lows, when you succumb to a listless depression, brought about by the unyielding heat, sporadic sickness, pitiless isolation, food shortages, and the realization that so much of what ails Tarawa, the overpopulation and all its attendant health and social problems, need not be as bad as it is.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: The longer we spent on
Few things are more enjoyable than lingering over the atlas and plotting a trip.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Few things are more enjoyable
I was simply restless, quite likely because of a dissatisfaction with the recent trajectory of my life, and if there is a better, more compelling reason for dropping everything and moving to the end of the world, I know not what it is.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: I was simply restless, quite
The gift of sobriety is clarity and a sense of connection - and travel only enhances that.
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: The gift of sobriety is
Look for a wave shaped like an A.

An A.

Hmm.

I saw Zs and H's and Vs. I saw the Hindi alphabet and the Thai alphabet. I saw Arabic script. I saw no As.

Finally I gave up, and chose the next wave that would have me, which turned out to be a poor move.

There is a moment, shortly after one accepts the imminence of one's demise, when it occurs that you could be elsewhere: that if you simply left the house a little later, or lingered over a Mai Tai, you would not be here now confronting your mortality. This moment occurred just as I encountered a very large (from my perspective), rare and surprising wave. A wave that was pitching and howling, and it really had no business being where it was - underneath me.

The demon wave picked me up, and after that I have only a a vague recollection of spinning limbs, a weaponized surf board, and chaotic white water, churning together over a reef.

I decided surfing was not for me. I generally no longer engage in adrenaline rush activities that carry with them a strong likely hood of life-altering injury. (p. 138)
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: Look for a wave shaped
For what is life, a good life, but the accumulation of small pleasures?
J. Maarten Troost Quotes: For what is life, a
J.M. Worgan Quotes «
» J. MacDonald Quotes