“We are so used to the notion of our own inevitability as life’s dominant species that it is hard to grasp that… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
The basic challenge of any book is you know you're going to be working on it for three or four years or… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition. At a… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
I ordered a coffee and a little something to eat and savored the warmth and dryness. Somewhere in the background Nat King… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
This was 1990, the year that communism died in Europe and it seemed strange to me that in all the words that… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking from… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
... it occurred to me that never again would he be seven years, one month and six days old, so we had… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
If you believe in god, it's much more fantastic to believe that he created this universe billions of years ago and set… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder,… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
After years of patient study (and with cricket there can be no other kind), I have decided that there is nothing wrong… — 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
Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by… — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
Your pillow alone may be home to 40 million bed mites. (To them your head is just one large oily bon-bon). And… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
Nobody gets excited about the future at all, ever. The future is something we find depressing and worrisome. — Bill Bryson Copy Share Image
“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 Image
