Bill Bryson quotes - page 2

[I relaxed] my customary aversion to consulting a book by anyone so immensely pratty as to put "Ph.D." after his name (I don't put Ph.D. after my name on my books, after all - and not just because I don't have one). (Bill Bryson)
We couldn't place their accents but we thought the smaller one might be Australian since he seemed so at home down under. View quote
Bill Bryson
Blackpool's illuminations are nothing if not splendid, and they are not splendid. View quote
Bill Bryson
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. View quote
Bill Bryson
Normally, your wife can hear things that no one else on earth can hear. She can hear a dab of jam fall onto a carpet two rooms away. She can hear spilled coffee being furtively mopped up with a good bathtowel. She can hear dirt being tracked across a clean floor. She can hear you just thinking about doing something you shouldn't do. But get yourself stuck in a loft hatch and suddenly it is as if she has been placed in a soundproof chamber. View quote
Bill Bryson
...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." View quote
Bill Bryson
That's the trouble with losing your mind; by the time it's gone, it's too late to get it back. View quote
Bill Bryson
Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding. View quote
Bill Bryson
There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person. View quote
Bill Bryson
To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They will listen to your problems and never ask a thing in return. They will be your friends forever. And when you get tired of them, you can kill and eat them. Perfect. View quote
Bill Bryson
If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like. (Bill Bryson)
Christmas tree stands are the work of the devil and they want you dead. View quote
Bill Bryson
Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness. View quote
Bill Bryson
I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. View quote
Bill Bryson
The tearoom lady called me love. All the shop ladies called me love and most of the men called me mate. I hadn't been here twelve hours and already they loved me. View quote
Bill Bryson
As the saying goes, it takes all kinds to make the world go around, though perhaps some shouldn't go quite so far around it as others. View quote
Bill Bryson
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 of the container. View quote
Bill Bryson
I refer of course to the soaring wonder of the age known as the Eiffel Tower. Never in history has a structure been more technologically advanced, materially obsolescent, and gloriously pointless all at the same time. View quote
Bill Bryson
I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this all at once, every moment, on the trail or off. View quote
Bill Bryson
Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen. View quote
Bill Bryson
99.99 percent of all species that have ever lived are no longer with us. (Bill Bryson)
The taipan is the one to watch out for. It is the most poisonous snake on Earth, with a lunge so swift and a venom so potent that your last mortal utterance is likely to be: "I say, is that a sn. View quote
Bill Bryson
Roads get wider and busier and less friendly to pedestrians. And all of the development based around cars, like big sprawling shopping malls. Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being. View quote
Bill Bryson
Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old. View quote
Bill Bryson
Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality. View quote
Bill Bryson