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J. Maarten Troost Quotes

Like many highly educated people, I didn't have much in the way of actual skills.

Like many highly educated people, I didn't have much in the way of actual skills.

J. Maarten Troost
Skills, People, Way
J. Maarten Troost (2004). “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific”, Broadway

Paradise was always over there, a day’s sail away. But it’s a funny thing, escapism. You can go far and wide and you can keep moving on and on through places and years, but you never escape your own life. I, finally, knew where my life belonged. Home.

J. Maarten Troost
Moving, Home, Years
J. Maarten Troost (2006). “Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu”, p.229, Broadway Books

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
Appreciated, Deprivation, American Life
J. Maarten Troost (2006). “Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu”, p.8, Broadway Books

Personally I regard idling as a virtue, but civilized society holds otherwise.

J. Maarten Troost
Virtue, Civilized Society, Civilized
J. Maarten Troost (2004). “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific”, Broadway

I had grown accustomed to life being interesting and adventure ridden and, rather childishly, I refused to believe that this must necessarily come to an end and that the rest of my life should be a sort of penance for all the reckless, irresponsible, and immensely fun things I’d done before.

J. Maarten Troost
Fun, Believe, Adventure
J. Maarten Troost (2004). “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific”, Broadway

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
Moving, Compelling Reason, World
J. Maarten Troost (2004). “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific”, Broadway

Like many air travelers, I am aware that airplanes fly aided by capricious fairies and invisible strings.

J. Maarten Troost
Airplane, Fairy, Invisible

No one who claims this to be a small world has ever flown across the Pacific.

J. Maarten Troost
World, Claims, Small World
J. Maarten Troost (2004). “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific”, Broadway

Bwenawa brought my attention to two wooden planks raised about four feet above the ground. On the ledges were lagoon fish sliced open and lying in the sun, the carcasses just visible through an enveloping blizzard of flies. "You see, " said Bwenawa. "The water dries in the sun, leaving the salt. It's kang-kang [tasty]. We call it salt fish." "Ah," I said. "In my country we call it rotten fish.

J. Maarten Troost
Country, Lying, Two
J. Maarten Troost (2004). “The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific”, Broadway

It is often said that Americans have no sense of history. Ask a college student who Jimmy Carter was and they will likely reply that he was a general in the Civil War, which occurred in 1492, when Americans dumped tea into the Gulf of Tonkin, sparking the First World War, which ended with the invasion of Grenada and the development of the cotton press.

J. Maarten Troost
War, College, Tea

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