Bill Bryson Quotes

'Tell me, did they specify ’asshole’ on the job description, or did you take a course?'

Bill Bryson

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Quotes to Explore

• Science fiction is what we point to when we say it.

  

  Damon Knight
  • Science
  • Fiction
  • Point

• The ideas keep going, you have the material, you cut because there's a limit to the space allowed to you. And the space is limited because of some other constraints that have to do with money or printing or whatever.

  

  Ted Nelson
  • Money
  • Space
  • Ideas

• When you're writing a novel - at least the way I write is I work from what I would call 'emotional atmosphere,' ambiance to ambiance.

  

  Oscar Hijuelos
  • Work
  • Writing
  • Emotional

• No decent career was ever founded on a public.

  

  F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Career
  • Ever
  • Decent

• The utilization of flat roofs as 'grounds' offers us a means of re-acclimatizing nature amidst the stony deserts of our great towns; for the plots from which she has been evicted to make room for buildings can be given back to her up aloft.

  

  Walter Gropius
  • Up
  • Great
  • She

• The starting point of all achievement is desire.

  

  Napoleon Hill
  • Success
  • Desire
  • Achievement

• Unlike many Californians or New Yorkers, college football is a religion down south.

  

  Omari Hardwick
  • College
  • Football
  • Religion

• China's one-child policy was born in 1980, after years of less severe measures to discourage births. The Communist Party promised that the policy would be temporary.

  

  Barbara Demick
  • Party
  • Years
  • Born

• Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe.

  

  Viktor Orban
  • Life
  • Risk
  • Better

• I've never been in a relationship before. I've only been in unrequited relationships where people haven't loved me back. I guess I'm a little bit attracted to that in a bad way.

  

  Sam Smith
  • People
  • Bad
  • Me

• Project Xanadu is essentially my trademark. It was originally, and has returned to my arms as that.

  

  Ted Nelson
  • Project
  • Originally

• Imperialist enterprise draws political consequences.

  

  C. L. R. James
  • Political
  • Consequences

• After 9/11, I changed a lot of the ways I viewed the world. I realized my comedy and my politics and my view of the world did not match. I had to start writing from my heart.

  

  Hari Kondabolu
  • World
  • Writing
  • Heart

• America thrives on identity politics, left and right. But France is opposed to the idea. Since the Revolution, the French have enthroned the idea of universalism. All of us must be equal before the law as abstract individuals, and that extends to the arts.

  

  Edmund White
  • America
  • Law
  • Politics

• I don't only write about English literature; I also write about chaos theory and... ants. I can understand ants.

  

  A. S. Byatt
  • English
  • Literature
  • Chaos

• I don't intentionally go: 'Ooh, what is provocative,' and try to do that. I just do stuff, and people go: 'Ooh, that's provocative.'

  

  M.I.A.
  • People
  • Try
  • Go

• In school, I had a tough time fitting in, and dancing was my way of being in my own element. As a teenager, I became a bit disillusioned with it. Even with competitions, I'd win, but still there would be tears.

  

  FKA twigs
  • Time
  • School
  • Win

• If you don't have a healthy relationship with yourself, how can you with anyone else? Even if it's not healthy, I imagine it's a lot of fun. And healthy or not, I still think there can be a lot of love.

  

  Gaby Hoffmann
  • Fun
  • Relationship
  • Healthy

• Irony is a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos.

  

  Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel
  • Chaos
  • Consciousness
  • Irony

• Why do we take pleasure in gruesome death, neatly packaged as a puzzle to which we may find a satisfactory solution through clues - or if we are not clever enough, have it revealed by the all-powerful tale-teller at the end of the book? It is something to do with being reduced to, and comforted by, playing by the rules.

  

  A. S. Byatt
  • Why
  • May
  • Book

• Why does one always ask a writer why they stopped? I am sure everyone finds in any drawer a few dear poems.

  

  Peter Bichsel
  • Why

• In the course of evolution, it constantly happens that, independently of each other, two different forms of life take similar, parallel paths in adapting themselves to the same external circumstances.

  

  Konrad Lorenz
  • Life
  • Different

• If I were in a situation where I had to meet a pack of wolves and my family is with me, I'm going to be scared, but I'm not going to hide behind my son to protect me. They're going to hide behind me.

  

  Jon Seda
  • Family
  • Son

• 'Tell me, did they specify ’asshole’ on the job description, or did you take a course?'

  

  Bill Bryson
  • Job