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Bill Bryson

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Famous Bill Bryson Quotes

“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.”

MomentsOrderResultsMaterialsPartnersTinyStuckCombinationAncestorQuestsWoundedSequenceDeliveringRight MomentHereditaryStrandedPertinent
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“It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards either. A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much viatmin C as the average person today.”

PeopleIfsPersonsTodayFiveStandardsAverageImprovementEnjoyedDietsTypicalHuntersFarmingConsumedProteinCaloriesAverage PersonHunter Gatherers
Book:At Home: A Short History of Private Life
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“When the Duke [W.J.C. Scott-Bentinck] died, his heirs found all of the aboveground rooms devoid of furnishings except for one chamber in the middle of which sat the Duke's commode. The main hall was mysteriously floor less. Most of the rooms were painted pink. The one upstairs room in which the Duke had resided was packed to the ceiling with hundreds of green boxes, each of which contained a single dark brown wig. This was, in short, a man worth getting to know.”

KnowsMenFoundDarkRoomsMiddleDiedGreenBoxesSatBrownHallsChamberCeilingsHeirsDukesWigsUpstairsFurnishings
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“It was one of those sumptuous days when the world is full of autumn muskiness and tangy, crisp perfection: vivid blue sky, deep green fields, leaves in a thousand luminous hues. It is a truly astounding sight when every tree in a landscape becomes individual, when each winding back highway and plump hillside is suddenly and infinitely splashed with every sharp shade that nature can bestow - flaming scarlet, lustrous gold, throbbing vermilion, fiery orange.”

WorldIndividualTreeSkyFieldsThousandPerfectionGoldSightBlueGreenLandscapeAutumnShadeOrangeHighwaysVividLuminousFieryBlue SkyHueScarletCrispsSumptuousGreen Fields
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“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”

IfsWorldLifeMindFirstsAbleTakenJourneyPositionThis WorldAdventureTravelSummerFirst TimeRewardsEverydayFamiliarWanderLuxuryAround The WorldGrantedDestinationTime TravelTraveledTravelerFunny TravelAdventurousTourismGreat TravelInspiring TravelTaken For GrantedTravel The WorldTravel AdventureAdventure And TravelRoad TripSeeing The WorldLife Is An AdventureGreat ExperiencesPhotography And TravelSolo TravelInspirational AdventureRoads TraveledLife AdventureAdventure And LifeWant To TravelBackpackingTravel AbroadTravel And TourismTrippingRoads And JourneysInspirational Adventure TimeTravellers FunnyTravel ExperienceTravel BugFunny AdventureRoad LifeSightseeingEveryday ThingsStudy AbroadAdventurous SoulsWandering MindFamiliar ThingsGreatest AdventureExperiencing Things
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“Think of a single problem confronting the world today. Disease, poverty, global warming... If the problem is going to be solved, it is science that is going to solve it. Scientists tend to be unappreciated in the world at large, but you can hardly overstate the importance of the work they do. If anyone ever cures cancer, it will be a guy with a science degree. Or a woman with a science degree.”

IfsThinkingWorldProblemTodayScienceGuyPovertyDiseaseDegreesResearchScientistImportanceCancerSolveCuresGlobal WarmingWorld TodayConfronting
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“Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car.”

ThinkingInspirationalShouldHas BeensFunCarEatingConceptsDinnerRidiculousInventionSarcasticMidnightMotorSwissMotor CarsEating Dinner
Book:Neither Here, Nor There: Travels in Europe
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“For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless. And then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match.”

PeopleLongAbilityPerfectTechnologyStupidComputerLong TimeSmartMachinesEdgesUselessExpensiveProgrammingProgrammersComputer ProgrammingComputer ScienceProgramming LanguagesSmart PeopleStupid ThingsComputer LanguagePuzzledComputer ProgrammersProgramming FunnyPerfect Match
Author:Bill Bryson
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“English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin - a language with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.”

ShouldWritingLittlesReasonLanguageSimpleCommonAirExampleAuthorityDecidedComplexesAvailableCoffeeReason WhyInstantNo ReasonLatinSplitsConfusingGrammarForsakeTerminologyAir TravelInstant CoffeeEnglish GrammarInfinitive
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“For most of us the rules of English grammar are at best a dimly remembered thing. But even for those who make the rules, grammatical correctitude sometimes proves easier to urge than to achieve. Among the errors cited in this book are a number committed by some of the leading authorities of this century. If men such as Fowler and Bernstein and Quirk and Howard cannot always get their English right, is it reasonable to expect the rest of us to?”

IfsMenWritingBookSometimesNumbersAchieveCenturyEasierProveAuthorityErrorsCommittedRememberedReasonableUrgesGrammarQuirksEnglish Grammar
Author:Bill Bryson
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“My favourite fellow of the Royal Society is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, an obscure 18th-century Kent clergyman and a brilliant mathematician who devised a complex equation known as the Bayes theorem, which can be used to work out probability distributions. It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis.”

TodayScienceUsedKnownCenturyComputerFellowsLifetimeClimateComplexesClimate ChangeWork OutBrilliantPracticalsThanksAnalysisApplicationFavouriteMathematicianObscureProbabilityRoyalEquationsDistributionTheorems18th CenturyClergymenAstrophysicsModellingKentReverends
Author:Bill Bryson
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“Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days - that's walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls - adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day.”

HomePurposeWalksEnvironmentWeekMinutesCarTypeWalkingOfficePercentTwentiesDistanceAddAverageMilesThese DaysShoppingYardsTrailsMallsSupermarketsAppalachian Trail
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“[The Royal Society] is quite simply the voice of science in Britain. It is intellectually rigorous, not afraid to be outspoken on controversial issues such as climate change, but it is not aggressively secular either, insisting on a single view of the world. In fact, there are plenty of eminent scientists - Robert Winston, for instance - who are also men of faith.”

MenWorldFactsScienceFaithVoiceViewsIssuesScientistClimateClimate ChangeInstancePlentyBritainNot AfraidSecularRoyalControversialInsistingOutspokenControversial Issues
Author:Bill Bryson
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“Most of the time I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment, the amazing complex delicacy of the words, the casual ease with which elemental things come together to form a composition that is—whatever the season, wherever I put my besotted gaze—perfect.”

FirstsLooksKindMomentsTogetherFormWalksPerfectFirst TimeSeasonsComplexesEaseLook UpCompositionCasualDelicacyAstonishmentElementals
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“You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a windblown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.”

WayCitiesStreetsMiddleCoupleEuropeStandingWestBusyArguingInsaneWanderIslandsMapsTrafficAlleysIntersectionsUndisciplinedMidwesterners
Book:The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America
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“Every living thing is an elaboration of a single original plan. As humans we are mere increments - each of us a musty archive of adjustments, adaptations, modifications and providential tinkerings stretching back to 3,8 billion years. Remarkably we are even quite closely related to fruit and vegetables. About half the chemical functions that take place in a banana are fundamentally the same as the chemical functions that place in you. It cannot be said too often: all life is one. That is, and I suspect will ever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is.”

YearsHumansSaidLife IsHalfPlansProveFunctionOriginalsMereProfoundFruitBillionsStatementsRelatedSuspectsChemicalsVegetablesAdaptationLiving ThingsAdjustmentStretchingBananasArchivesModificationFruits And VegetablesTinkering
Author:Bill Bryson
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“Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - old churches, country lanes, people saying 'Mustn't grumble,' and 'I'm terribly sorry but,' people apologizing to ME when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, tea and crumpets, summer showers and foggy winter evenings - every bit of it.”

PeopleCountryMomentsLastsBitsChurchSpaceSummerSorryWinterI RealizedEveningTeaBritainMapsBottlesMilkApologizingShowersGood And BadJuneCarelessLanesBeansSurveysToastsElbowsPiersOld ChurchesCrumpetsOrdnance
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“It isn't easy to become a fossil. ... Only about one bone in a billion, it is thought, becomes fossilized. If that is so, it means that the complete fossil legacy of all the Americans alive today - that's 270 million people with 206 bones each - will only be about 50 bones, one-quarter of a complete skeleton. That's not to say, of course, that any of these bones will ever actually be found.”

PeopleIfsMeanTodayScienceCoursesFoundEasyMillionsAliveBonesBillionsLegacyQuartersFossilsLive For TodaySkeletons
Author:Bill Bryson
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