Bill Bryson Quotes
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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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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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Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century. The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed.
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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 to see you, and you can't go home again.
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Much as I resented having to grow up in Des Moines, it gave me a real appreciation for every place in the world that's not Des Moines.
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Have you ever seen Glenn Beck in operation? It is the most terrifying thing. It's so bad that you think he's going to announce in a minute that it's all a great con. He makes Sarah Palin look reasonable and steady.
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Bryson. You’ve got three kinds of chromosomes: X, Y and fuck-head. - Katz
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I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored. But then it occurred to me that musing is a pointless waste of anyone's time, and instead I went off to see if I could find a Baby Ruth candy bar, a far more profitable exercise.
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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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I have made a career of bumbling around places, stumbling on landmarks and generally being quite haphazard and shambolic about the way I go about things.
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The whole of the global economy is based on supplying the cravings of two per cent of the world's population.
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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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The thing about the Army Corps of Engineers is that they don’t build things very well.
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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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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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There is the odd exception, like Albert Einstein, but as a breed, scientists tend not be very good at presenting themselves.
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Blackpool's illuminations are nothing if not splendid, and they are not splendid.
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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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There is always a little more toothpaste in the tube. Think about it.
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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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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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Boston's freeway system is insane. It was clearly designed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains.