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Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson Quotes

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Famous Bill Bryson Quotes

“Everything that has ever lived, plant or animal, dates its beginning from the same primordial twitch. At some point in an unimaginably distant past, some little bag of chemicals fidgeted to life. It absorbed some nutrients, gently pulsed, had a brief existence. This much may have happened many times before. But this ancestral packet did something additional and extraordinary. It cleaved itself and produced an heir. A tiny bundle of genetic material passed from one living entity to another, and has never stopped moving since. It was the moment of creation for us all.”

MayLittlesMomentsPastMovingAnimalExistenceHappenedCreationMaterialsPlantExtraordinaryTinyBagsChemicalsEntityHeirsBundlesNutrients
Book:A Short History of Nearly Everything
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“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
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“I had to drive to Minneapolis once, and went on a back road just to see the country. But there was nothing to see. It's just flat and hot, and full of corn and soybeans and hogs. Every once in a while you come across a farm or some dead little town where the liveliest thing is the flies.”

LittlesCountryTownsHotFlatsFarmsCornHogLittle TownsMinneapolisSoybeansBack Roads
Book:The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America
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“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
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“If you go out on the Appalachian Trail, you have to bring so much more equipment - a tent, sleeping bag - but if you go hiking in England, or Europe, generally, towns and villages are near enough together at the end of the day you can always go to a nice little inn and have a hot bath and something to drink.”

IfsLittlesEndsEnoughTogetherSleepNiceDrinkEuropeEnglandTownsHotThe End Of The DayBagsVillageHikingEquipmentTrailsBathsTentsInnsAppalachiaHot BathsAppalachian Trail
Author:Bill Bryson
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“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
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“And before long there will be no more milk in bottles delivered to the doorstep or sleepy rural pubs, and the countryside will be mostly shopping centers and theme parks. Forgive me. I don't mean to get upset. But you are taking my world away from me, piece by little piece, and sometimes it just pisses me off. Sorry.”

WorldMeanLittlesLongSometimesPiecesForgivingSorryUpsetParksThemeBottlesShoppingMilkCountrysideForgive MePubsSleepyDoorstepTheme ParksShopping Centers
Book:The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America
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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
Author:Bill Bryson
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“Clearly, some time ago makers and consumers of American junk food passed jointly through some kind of sensibility barrier in the endless quest for new taste sensations. Now they are a little like those desperate junkies who have tried every known drug and are finally reduced to mainlining toilet bowl cleanser in an effort to get still higher.”

KindLittlesStillsEffortKnownFoodHigherTasteDrugEndlessConsumersDesperateBarriersSensationsMakersQuestsBowlsSensibilityToiletsJunkJunkieJunk FoodFood And Eating
Book:The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America
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