Quotessence
Home / Authors / Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleScienceWorldKnowsKindThinkingTravelWayLittles

Famous Bill Bryson Quotes

“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.”

ThinkingInspirationalI CanCountryFunnyWonderGreaterTravelSillyIgnorantWanderWhere You AreInsightfulTime TravelTraveledFunny TravelTourismTravel WritingChildlikeGreat TravelInspiring TravelLife Is An AdventureTravel And TourismInspirational VacationRoad LifeChildlike WonderTravel LightForeign TravelVacation Time
Author:Bill Bryson
Create image

“But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. 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. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWantYearsI CanCountryWholeInterestingExistenceTalkingWonderFiveGreaterStreetsTravelGloryConcernedCrossesSeriesIgnorantWanderMemorableFive YearsWhere You AreTravel WritingChildlikeGreat TravelFive Year OldsLife Is An AdventureLife AdventureWant To TravelChildlike WonderForeign Travel
Book:Neither here nor there: travels in Europe
Create image

“Disassemble the cells of a sponge (by passing them through a sieve, for instance), then dump them into a solution, and they will find their way back together and build themselves into a sponge again. You can do this to them over and over, and they will doggedly reassemble because, like you and me and every other living thing, they have one overwhelming impulse: to continue to be.”

WayTogetherCan DoLike YouSolutionsPassingPassingsInstanceCellsImpulseOverwhelmingLiving ThingsBack TogetherDumpSponges
Author:Bill Bryson
Create image

“Tune your television to any channel it doesn't receive and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.”

BigsRememberUniverseNextWatchesTelevisionBirthPercentDancingAncientComplainingTunesNext TimeBangsStaticRemnants
Book:A Short History of Nearly Everything
Create image

“At the foot of the mountain, the park ended and suddenly all was squalor again. I was once more struck by this strange compartmentalization that goes on in America -- a belief that no commercial activities must be allowed inside the park, but permitting unrestrained development outside, even though the landscape there may be just as outstanding. America has never quite grasped that you can live in a place without making it ugly, that beauty doesn't have to be confined behind fences, as if a national park were a sort of zoo for nature.”

IfsMayAmericaBeliefBehindsFeetStrangeGoes OnDevelopmentActivityMountainUglyLandscapeParksFenceConfinedOutstandingZoosNational ParksSqualor
Book:The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America
Create image

“It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect... It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players - more if they are moderately restless.”

IfsWayHumansLooksNamesSportsSidesInterestingBreakPlayerShareEffectsMealsEndeavorCricketInsectsRestlessSpectatorsLivelyCaloriesSide Effects
Author:Bill Bryson
Create image

“It was the kind of pure, undiffused light that can only come from a really hot blue sky, the kind that makes even a concrete highway painful to behold and turns every distant reflective surface into a little glint of flame. Do you know how sometimes on very fine days the sun will shine with a particular intensity that makes the most mundane objects in the landscape glow with an unusual radiance, so that buildings and structures you normally pass without a glance suddenly become arresting, even beautiful? Well, they seem to have that light in Australia nearly all the time.”

KnowsWellsKindLittlesSometimesLightSeemsBeautifulTurnsKnow HowSunSkyObjectsBuildingParticularFinePureHotBlueStructureShiningPainfulSurfaceLandscapeFlamesAustraliaDo You KnowIntensityUnusualConcreteGlancesHighwaysMundaneRadianceBlue SkyArrestingFine Day
Author:Bill Bryson
Create image

“I turned to my own bunk and examined it with a kind of appalled fascination. If the mattress stains were anything to go by, a previous user had not so much suffered from incontinence as rejoiced in it. He had evidently included the pillow in his celebrations.”

IfsKindMy OwnTravelCelebrationUsersFascinationPillowStainsMattressesBunkIncontinence
Book:A Walk In The Woods: The World's Funniest Travel Writer Takes a Hike
Create image

“On the dashboard of our family car is a shallow indentation about the size of a paperback book. If you are looking for somewhere to put your sunglasses or spare change, it is the obvious place, and it works extremely well, I must say, so long as the car is not actually moving. However, as soon as you put the car in motion ... everything slides off ... It can hold nothing that has not been nailed to it. So I ask you: what then is it for?”

IfsWellsLongBookMovingAsksCarSizeObviousOur FamilySparesShallowSlidesSunglassesDashboardsSpare Change
Author:Bill Bryson
Create image

“Your pillow alone may be home to 40 million bed mites. (To them your head is just one large oily bon-bon). And don't think a clean pillow-case will make a difference... Indeed, if your pillow is six years old--which is apparently about the average age for a pillow--it has been estimated that one-tenth of its weight will be made up of sloughed skin, living mites, dead mites and mite dung.”

IfsThinkingYearsMayHas BeensMadeHomeAgeDifferencesMillionsCasesBedSixSkinsWeightCleanAverageJust OneMaking A DifferencePillowSix Year Olds
Author:Bill Bryson
Create image

“If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.”

IfsWayHumansKindMeanBookUniverseCoursesEnjoyAbilityExistenceTalentLessonsLuckyAchievementAppreciatePrivilegeMultitudesLiving Things
Book:A Short History of Nearly Everything
Create image