Bill Bryson Quotes

I somberly reflected that the history of the Highlands is five hundred years of cruelty and bloodshed followed by two hundred years of way too much bagpipe music.

I refer of course to the soaring wonder of the age known as the Eiffel Tower. Never in history has a structure been more technologically advanced, materially obsolescent, and gloriously pointless all...

I read once that the furthest distance the average American will walk without getting into a car is six hundred feet, and I fear the modern British have become much the same, except that on the way ba...

I read once that it takes 75,000 trees to produce one issue of the Sunday New York Times – and it’s well worth every trembling leaf. So what if our grandchildren have no oxygen to breathe? Fuck ’em.

I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored.

I might not be the first person in history to touch both ends of the Bryson Line, but I was certainly the first to do it and know he had done it. So

I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of ragged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding rains.

I just seem to have a knack for memorizing star fields,’ he told me, with a frankly apologetic look, when I visited him and his wife, Elaine, in their picture-book bungalow on a tranquil edge of the v...

I hung up again and looked at Katz. What is it with this town? I've blown more intelligent life into a handkerchief.

I have often been struck in Britain by this sort of thing - by how mysteriously well educated people from unprivileged background so often are, how the most unlikely people will tell you plant names i...

I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth, and Mary Ellen was proof that even in the Appalachian woods I would not be s...

I glanced at my watch - it was two minutes to eleven; just right for lunch when and if we ever got to the godforsaken lodge - and took some comfort from the thought that at least I still had my wits a...

I ended up with enough equipment to bring full employment to a vale of sherpas—

I drove on into Des Moines and it looked very large and handsome in the afternoon sunshine. The golden dome of the state capitol building gleamed. Every yard was dark with trees. People were out cutti...

I don’t know why religious zealots have this compulsion to try to convert everyone who passes before them – I don’t go around trying to make them into St Louis Cardinals fans, for Christ’s sake – and...

I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game. It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sp...

I can think of two very good reasons for not splitting an infinitive. 1. Because you feel that the rules of English ought to conform to the grammatical precepts of a language that died a thousand year...

I can never understand why Londoners fail to see that they live in the most wonderful city in the world. It is, if you ask me, far more beautiful and interesting than Paris and more lively than anywhe...

I am not a religious soul, but I must say it does seem a little uncanny that on that morning of all mornings I should have looked over the bridge at such a propitious moment. I mentioned the story at...

I also said no to a first-aid kit, sewing kit, anti-snake-bite kit, $12 emergency whistle, and small orange plastic shovel for burying one’s poop, on the grounds that these were unnecessary, too expen...