Bill Bryson Quotes
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'Tell me, did they specify ’asshole’ on the job description, or did you take a course?'
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The best that can be said for Norwegian television is that it gives you the sensation of a coma without the worry and inconvenience.
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Des Moines is like your typical American city; it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.
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I don't care how paranoid and irrational this makes me sound, but I know for a fact that the people of Paris want me dead.
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I'm a great believer that you had to do everything you've done to have got to where you are.
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The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed.
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I grew up, really, in the days before air conditioning. So I can remember what it was like to be really hot, for instance, and I can remember what it was like when your barber shop and your local stores weren't air conditioned, so it was hot when you went in them and they propped the doors open.
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Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do.
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...Our guide announces that he's going to take us to the coldest place on Earth, where particles are cooled to within a fraction of a Kelvin. 'Ah,' says Bryson. 'That must be Donald Rumsfeld's heart.'
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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.
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For forty years or so this was the world headquarters of conspicuous consumption.
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Yes, U.S. travelers dress better. The British are always so conspicuous in hot climates. They don't seem to wear shorts. American men seem to be comfortable wearing hot-weather clothing.
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I understand cricket - what's going on, the scoring - but I can't understand why.
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America was entering the age not just of the automobile but of the retarded attention span.
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When you tell an Iowan a joke, you can see a kind of race going on between his brain and his expression.
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A sign in the yard of a church next door said CHRIST IS THE ANSWER. (The question, of course, is: What do you say when you strike your thumb with a hammer?)
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The first book I did - the first successful book - was a kind of a travel book, and publishers in Britain encouraged me to do more.
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Bryson. You’ve got three kinds of chromosomes: X, Y and fuck-head. - Katz
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I'm definitely an American, because I grew up here. But I've lived very happily in Britain.
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I've been wanting to do a book about baseball for the longest time, and nobody will let me do it. It's the one thing from America I really miss.
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A friend Alan and I ended up in an Outback pub in a place called Daly Waters and apparently, he says, in the course of this very lively evening we spent there I offered to do a house swap with a family from Korea. We weren't sure whether they were from North Korea or South Korea.
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I sometimes think I cannot write another passage about a disappointing meal ever again, because I've done it so many times.
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It was impossible to determine what he was saying, but I imagined he was telling all those present that they were nongs and maggots. I decided I quite liked watching the news with the sound off.
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Absolute brain size does not tell you everything - or possibly sometimes even much. Elephants and whales both have brains larger than ours, but you wouldn't have much trouble outwitting them in contract negotiations.