“So to sleep on the sleeping porch required preparation. First, you put on long underwear, pajamas, jeans, a sweatshirt, your grandfather’s old cardigan and bathrobe, two pairs of woolen socks on your feet and another on your hands, and a hat with earflaps tied beneath the chin. Then you climbed into bed and were immediately covered with a dozen bed blankets, three horse blankets, all the household overcoats, a canvas tarpaulin, and a piece of old carpet. I’m not sure that they didn’t lay an old wardrobe on top of that, just to hold everything down. It was like sleeping under a dead horse. For the first minute or so it was unimaginably cold, shockingly cold, but gradually your body heat seeped in and you became warm and happy in a way you would not have believed possible only a minute or two before. It was bliss. Or at least it was until you moved a muscle. The warmth, you discovered, extended only to the edge of your skin and not a micron farther. There wasn’t any possibility of shifting positions. If you so much as flexed a finger or bent a knee, it was like plunging them into liquid nitrogen.”

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 140

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "So to sleep on the sleeping porch required preparation. First, you put on long underwear, pajamas, jeans, a sweatshirt,…" by Bill Bryson?

Bill Bryson112

American author 1951

Related quotes

“It's like having a blanket that is too small for the bed. You pull the blanket up to keep your chest warm and your feet stick out. I cannot buy a bigger blanket because the supermarket is closed. But the blanket is made of cashmere!”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

During a Chelsea injury crisis http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/funny_old_game/7004282.stm Chelsea FC

“No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out.”

Bohumil Hrabal book Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age

Source: Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age

“…and you may sleep quietly in your beds.”

John Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher (1841–1920) Royal Navy admiral of the fleet

Speech at The Royal Academy Banquet, 1903, regarding the threat of invasion. p. 83. https://archive.org/stream/cu31924027924509#page/n113/mode/1up The phrase 'Sleep quiet in your beds' appears in Records, p. 85 https://archive.org/stream/cu31924027924509#page/n116/mode/1up and Memories, p. 202. https://archive.org/stream/memoriesbyadmira00fishuoft#page/202/mode/1up The phrase 'So sleep easy in your beds' was used for the title for the sixth episode of the BBC documentary The Great War. Records (1919) https://archive.org/stream/cu31924027924509#page/n0/mode/1up

“Could I but lay my head in your lap, lass. Feel your hand on me, and sleep wi' the scent of you in my bed.

Christ, Sassenach. I need ye.”

Diana Gabaldon book The Scottish Prisoner

Source: The Scottish Prisoner

“Feeling sorry for him? Take him home with you! Put him to sleep on your own bed!”

Luiz Carlos Alborghetti (1945–2009) Italian-Brazilian radio commenter, showman and political figure

Original: (pt) Tá com pena dele? Leva para tua casa! Põe para dormir na tua cama!

Source: [9 December 2009, Morre Luiz Carlos Alborghetti, dono do bordão 'bandido bom é bandido morto', https://extra.globo.com/tv-e-lazer/morre-luiz-carlos-alborghetti-dono-do-bordao-bandido-bom-bandido-morto-209786.html, Portuguese, Extra, Editora Globo S/A, 31 March 2019]

quote directed to Human Rights activists who supposedly defend criminals