difficult to read and impossible to write

 "I find it difficult to read and impossible to write with another person nearby. If the person is staring at me over a quart of jam and a crumbling load of bread, I am driven to distraction. So I did nothing but watch him because there was nothing but that to do. He was odd in another way: if I glanced out the window, so did he; if I went into the corridor, he followed; if I talked to the boy next door, whose father lay dying among empty champagne bottles, the zombie was at my heels and then peering over my shoulder. I couldn't rid myself of him—and I tried."

~~ from The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia by Paul Theroux