Bill Bryson: Trending quotes

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Bill Bryson: 224 quotes4 likes

“Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding. I am constantly filled with wonder at the number of things that other people do without any evident difficulty that are pretty much beyond me.”

Bill Bryson

Source: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away

“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.”

Bill Bryson

Source: In a Sunburned Country

“18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available.”

Bill Bryson

“Isn´t it strange how wealth is always wasted on the rich?”

Bill Bryson book Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

Source: Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

“When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimetre), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything

“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.”

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods

“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

“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--”

Bill Bryson

“I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”

Bill Bryson The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

Opening line.
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989)
Source: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid

“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.”

Bill Bryson book Notes from a Small Island

Source: Notes from a Small Island

“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.”

Bill Bryson book At Home: A Short History of Private Life

Source: At Home: A Short History of Private Life

“Christmas tree stands are the work of the devil and they want you dead.”

Bill Bryson

Source: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away

“One planet, one experiment.” If”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Short History of Nearly Everything

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

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods (1997), Chapter 14 (p. 187)

“But what is life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours — arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Page 336
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)

“The thing about the Army Corps of Engineers is that they don’t build things very well.”

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods (1997), Chapter 15 (p. 198)

“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.”

Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything

Pages 446-447, footnote
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003)

“It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavours look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. I don't wish to denigrate a sport that is enjoyed by millions, some of them awake and facing the right way, but it is an odd game.”

Bill Bryson

In a Sunburned Country (US), Down Under (UK) (2000)

“Now Stonewall Jackson is a man worth taking an interest in. Few people in history have achieved greater fame in a shorter period with less useful activity in the brainbox than Gen. Thomas J. Jackson. (long list of character deficiencies elided)…
His ineradicable fame rests almost entirely on the fact that he had a couple of small but inspiring victories when elsewhere Southern troops were being slaughtered and routed and by dint of having the best nickname any soldier has ever enjoyed.”

Bill Bryson A Walk in the Woods

Source: A Walk in the Woods (1997), Chapter 13 (p. 171)