“This was 1990, the year that communism died in Europe and it seemed strange to me that in all the words that were written about the fall of the iron curtain, nobody anywhere lamented that it was the end of a noble experiment. I know that communism never worked and I would have disliked living under it myself but none the less it seems that there was a kind of sadness in the thought that the only economic system that appeared to work was one based on self interest and greed.” KnowsYearsKindEndsSelfSeemsFallInterestWrittenSadnessEconomicStrangeEuropeDiedGreedNobleExperimentsCommunismIronCurtainsSelf InterestEconomic SystemsIron Curtain Author:Bill Bryson
“Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.” KnowsWorldWayLittlesLongTwoRealizingCommunitySecretFeetWalkingTenLimitsFellowsDistanceMilesScalesEnormousFiftyConceptionLong WayHikerSmall CommunitiesWalk In The WoodsWalks In The Woods Author:Bill Bryson
“My mother only ever said two things. She said,'I don't know, dear.'And she said,'Can I get you a sandwich, honey?” KnowsSaidTwoMotherDearTwo ThingsHoneySandwiches Author:Bill Bryson
“If a potato can produce vitamin C, why can't we? Within the animal kingdom only humans and guinea pigs are unable to synthesize vitamin C in their own bodies. Why us and guinea pigs? No point asking. Nobody knows.” IfsKnowsHumansBodyAnimalProduceAskingKingdomsPigsPotatoesNo PointNobody KnowsVitaminsGuineaAnimal KingdomGuinea Pigs Author:Bill Bryson
“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 Source: Neither here nor there: travels in Europe
“Beulah has a husband?' I know. It's a miracle. There can't be more than two people on the planet who'd be willing to sleep with her, and here we are both in the same town.” PeopleKnowsTwoSleepWillingPlanetsHusbandMiracleTowns Author:Bill Bryson
“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
“I tell the kids that, even in a childhood marked by despair and deprivation, I knew that no matter what happened, I still had my family, or at least the remnants of a family ripped apart by divorce and then glued back together in various odd arrangements through a series of ill- advised remarriages. It was good to know I had a solid foundation.” KnowsStillsMatterKidsTogetherHappenedChildhoodDespairMy FamilyNo Matter WhatFoundationSeriesIllVariousDivorceOddArrangementsRippedBack TogetherDeprivationRemnantsSolid FoundationRemarriage Author:Bill Bryson
“The remarkable position in which we find ourselves is that we don't actually know what we actually know.” KnowsPositionRemarkable Book:A Short History of Nearly Everything Source: A Short History of Nearly Everything
“Anyone who has read my books will know that I don't tend to use guides when I am travelling. It's not a pride thing, but it is certainly a fact.” KnowsBookFactsUsePrideGuides Author:Bill Bryson
“I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed.” KnowsSeemsDisappointedMisanthropic Author:Bill Bryson
“I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed. Disappointed in the things that people do; disappointed in the things that people construct. I want things to be better all the time.” PeopleKnowsWantSeemsDisappointedConstructsMisanthropic Author:Bill Bryson
“You don't have to know anything about baseball to respond to Babe Ruth because he's just this magnificent human being. And a really good story because he was this kid who grew up essentially as an orphan, you know, had a tough life, and then he became the most successful baseball player ever. But he was also a really good guy.” KnowsHumansStoriesKidsGuyHuman BeingsSuccessfulPlayerGrewGrew UpToughBaseballMagnificentGood StoryGood GuyOrphanBabeBaseball PlayerRuthTough Life Author:Bill Bryson
“The upshot of all this is that we live in a universe whose age we can't quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don't altogether know, filled with matter we can't identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understand.” KnowsMatterAgeLawUniverseStarsFilledDistanceProperty Author:Bill Bryson
“But I got a great deal else from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for the wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of woods. I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the world. I found patience and fortitude that I didn't know I had. I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists. I made a friend. I came home.” PeopleKnowsWorldWayMadeHomeAmericaFoundStarsDarkSleepDealsMillionsProudPeriodsFitProfoundWoodsScalesWildernessFortitudeTentsBenignColossalSlender Author:Bill Bryson
“Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.” KnowsLittlesMatterMomentsFactsTogetherRememberUniverseSoundAliveEternityLuckPrivilegeObviousPortionsStrokesRemarksTriflesLittle TimeIncomparable Author:Bill Bryson
“No one knows, incidentally, why Australia's spiders are so extravagantly toxic; capturing small insects and injecting them with enough poison to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. Still, it does mean that everyone gives them lots of space.” KnowsGivingMeanDoeStillsEnoughSpaceCasesHorsePoisonAustraliaToxicInsectsSpidersLiteralOverkill Book:In a Sunburned Country Source: In a Sunburned Country
“So, if people didn’t settle down to take up farming, why then did they embark on this entirely new way of living? We have no idea – or actually, we have lots of ideas, but we don’t know if any of them are right. According to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, at least thirty-eight theories have been put forward to explain why people took to living in communities: that they were driven to it by climatic change, or by a wish to stay near their dead, or by a powerful desire to brew and drink beer, which could only be indulged by staying in one place.” PeopleIfsKnowsWayHas BeensIdeasDesireWishCommunityPowerfulTheoryDrinkEightDrivenBeerNo IdeaSettlingThirtyStayingNew WaysFarmingSettling DownFernsThirty Eight Author:Bill Bryson
“Woods are not like other spaces. To begin with, they are cubic. Their trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides. Woods choke off views & leave you muddled & without bearings. They make you feel small & confused & vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs. Stand in a desert or prairie & you know you are in a big space. Stand in the woods and you only sense it. They are vast, featureless nowhere. And they are alive.” KnowsFeelsChildrenBigsLostSidesSpaceViewsAliveTreeStrangePressesCrowdsLegsWoodsVulnerableDesertConfusedOver YouSurroundChokeSmall ChildPrairie Author:Bill Bryson
“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 Author:Bill Bryson
“It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.” KnowsWorldWellsFinding YourselfAngleThrilling Book:At Home: A Short History of Private Life Source: At Home: A Short History of Private Life
