The English invented cricket to make other human endeavors look interesting. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Roads get wider and busier and less friendly to pedestrians. And all of the development based around cars, like big sprawling shopping… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
The human diet consists of just nine plants: corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye and oats. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
If a potato can produce vitamin C, why can't we? Within the animal kingdom only humans and guinea pigs are unable to… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
When you consider it from a human perspective, and clearly it would be difficult for us to do otherwise, life is an… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven—corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet,… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Because we humans are big and clever enough to produce and utilize antibiotics and disinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves that… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Being a pessimist is just such a gloomy way of looking at things, so I have to hope for the best -… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
You don't have to know anything about baseball to respond to Babe Ruth because he's just this magnificent human being. And a… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
It's hard not to be kind of pessimistic about human beings generally, because we do tend to mess things up. If you… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively;… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Every living thing is an elaboration of a single original plan. As humans we are mere increments - each of us a… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
...if you were designing an organism to look after life in our lonely cosmos, to monitor where it is going and keep… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Most big companies don't like you very much, except hotels, airlines and Microsoft, which don't like you at all. — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“But Welsh spellings are as nothing compared with Irish Gaelic, a language in which spelling and pronunciation give the impression of having been devised… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“Pantaloons were often worn tight as paint and were not a great deal less revealing, particularly as they were worn without underwear. . .… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
If you go out on the Appalachian Trail, you have to bring so much more equipment - a tent, sleeping bag - but if… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“The dining table was a plain board called by that name. It was hung on the wall when not in use, and was perched… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“From almost nothing, France in four years built up an aircraft industry that employed nearly 200,000 people and produced some 70,000 planes. Britain built… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“A diarist named George Templeton Strong recorded in the winter of 1866 that even with two furnaces alight and all the fireplaces blazing, he… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
As a rule of thumb, I would submit that if you need to call your floss provider, for any reason, you are probably not… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
Nobody gets excited about the future at all, ever. The future is something we find depressing and worrisome. — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“What made this particularly interesting is that John Howard is by far the dullest man in Australia. Imagine a very committed funeral home director… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
I would make a genuinely terrible guide. I can't remember things. I would get half way through telling a story or explaining something and… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
“In the mystifying world that was Victorian parenthood, obedience took precedence over all considerations of affection and happiness, and that odd, painful conviction remained… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To… — Bill Bryson Copy Share
