I came across a profile on renowned travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux today on Cnn.com (http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/08/20/books.paul.theroux.ap/index.html). It was a nice little write-up, nothing too revealing but still interesting nonetheless. My favorite quote though was this:

“Theroux acknowledges that a great writer doesn't have to be a good person. In fact, he doubts that it's possible. Writers, he says, are by nature ‘unbalanced."’And Paul Theroux does not count himself among those who have kept the scales even.

‘Obviously not,’ he says. ‘Otherwise, why have I written, as I have, there's some emptiness or disorder that one's trying to fill or find an order in? If you look into history, you won't find many jolly, well-balanced people who were writers. I mean, look at them.

"’n a way, you can't be a writer unless you have sort of a personality problem. Balanced people don't become writers, obviously. Balanced people become gardeners, they raise happy families, they go to work every day, they smile. They have noodle salad.’

And now I make a little more sense to my coworkers ...