Bill Bryson Quotes

225 quotes in 3584 categories

• 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…
• There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.
• The remarkable position in which we find ourselves is that we don't actually know what we actually know.
• I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted - stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out…
• There are things you just can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he's ready…
• Boston's freeway system is insane. It was clearly designed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains.
• I can't fix the world. If you want to make a difference in life, you have to direct your energies in a focused way.
• A world without newspapers or a world where the newspapers are purely electronic and you read them on a screen is not a very appealing…
• America is a great disappointment to me. As I said in one of my books, other societies create civilisations; we build shopping malls.
• America is a very seductive place in terms of lifestyle and comfort, but it wasn't for me.
• Anyone who has read my books will know that I don't tend to use guides when I am travelling. It's not a pride thing, but…
• Cheapness is a great virtue.
• Des Moines is like your typical American city; it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.
• England was full of words I'd never heard before - streaky bacon, short back and sides, Belisha beacon, serviettes, high tea, ice-cream cornet.
• For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in…
• I always wanted to do a baseball book; I love baseball. The problem is that a very large part of my following is in non-baseball…
• I can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s. No country had ever…
• I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed.
• I don't want to go and start trying to make jokes in places like India, Tanzania or Iraq. Afghanistan is not a funny place.
• I see litter as part of a long continuum of anti-social behaviour.

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