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Quote by Robert Redford

“Well there's these things called books.... They are like TV for smart people.”

Author

Robert Redford, born on August 18, 1936, is a renowned American actor. His acting career began in the 1950s, and he gained international recognition with his outstanding performances in several classic films. Redford is not only an actor but also a director and producer, whose works hold an important place in the history of cinema. more

“These Cro-Magnon people were identical to us: they had the same physique, the same brain, the same looks. And, unlike all previous hominids who roamed the earth, they could choke on food. That may seem a trifling point, but the slight evolutionary change that pushed man's larynx deeper into his throat, and thus made choking a possibility, also brought with it the possibility of sophisticated, well articulated speech. Other mammals have no contact between their air passages and oesophagi. They can breathe and swallow at the same time, and there is no possibility of food going down the wrong way. But with Homo sapiens food and drink must pass over the larynx on the way to the gullet and thus there is a constant risk that some will be inadvertently inhaled. In modern humans, the lowered larynx isn't in position from birth. It descends sometime between the ages of three and five months - curiously, the precise period when babies are likely to suffer from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. At all events, the descended larynx explains why you can speak and your dog cannot.”

Language Animals Mammals Mother Tongue Bill Bryson Cro Magnon

Book:The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

Source: The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

“What is it about maps? I could look at them all day, intently studying the names of towns and villages I have never heard of and will never visit, tracing the course of obscure rivers, checking elevations, consulting the marginal notes to see what a little circle with a flag on it signifies and what's the difference between a pictogram of an airplane with a circle around it and one without, issuing small profound "hmmmms" and nodding my head gravely without having the faintest idea why.”

Travel Maps Bill Bryson

Book:Neither here nor there: travels in Europe

Source: Neither here nor there: travels in Europe

“Women are much better than men in tactile sensitivity with their fingers, but possibly only because they have smaller hands and, therefore, a denser network of receptors.”

Bill Bryson The Body A Guide For Occupants

Book:The Body: A Guide for Occupants

Source: The Body: A Guide for Occupants