...and it occurred to me, with the forcefulness of a thought experienced in 360 degrees, that that's really what history mostly is: masses of people doing ordinary things. Bill Bryson More Quotes by Bill Bryson More Quotes From Bill Bryson Romans park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid on my lap. Bill Bryson lap car way The great failure in education, much of the time, is the lack of excitement and stimulus Bill Bryson stimulus excitement Every dog on the face of the earth wants me dead. Bill Bryson earth dog want Physicists are atoms' way of thinking about atoms. Bill Bryson atoms way thinking I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family. Bill Bryson use stories world I hadn't realized quite how extraordinary Charles Lindbergh's achievement was in flying the Atlantic alone. He had never flown over open water before, but he flew straight to Dingle Bay in Ireland and then on to Paris, exactly as planned. Bill Bryson paris achievement water It was an especially wonderful time to be a noisy moron. Bill Bryson noisy moron wonderful 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. Bill Bryson misanthropic want people 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. Bill Bryson confused views children When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimetre), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy. Bill Bryson height intimacy sitting I can wear a baseball cap; I am entitled to wear a baseball cap. I am genetically pre-disposed to wear a baseball cap, whereas most English people look wrong in a baseball cap. Bill Bryson baseball people looks 99.99 percent of all species that have ever lived are no longer with us. Bill Bryson percent species When you consider it from a human perspective, and clearly it would be difficult for us to do otherwise, life is an odd thing. It couldn't wait to get going, but then, having gotten going, it seemed in very little hurry to move on. Bill Bryson perspective waiting moving Have you ever seen Glenn Beck in operation? It is the most terrifying thing. It's so bad that you think he's going to announce in a minute that it's all a great con. He makes Sarah Palin look reasonable and steady. Bill Bryson minutes looks thinking Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet. Bill Bryson nylon coffee age Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking from a long coma. Time, you discover, has wrought changes that leave you feeling mildly foolish and out of touch. Bill Bryson land long years In three minutes, 98 percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. We have a universe Bill Bryson minutes three matter The universe is not only queerer than we suppose; it is queerer than we can suppose Bill Bryson funny science knowledge I wish I could adjust my voice, but it's just what's happened to me. It's because I've lived abroad for a long time, and my wife is English and my kids all have English accents, and every voice I hear is English. I've never intentionally changed my accent at all. Bill Bryson voice long kids I'm not a natural story-teller. Put a keyboard in front of me and I'm fine, but stand me up in front of an audience and I'm actually quite shy and reserved. Bill Bryson keyboards shy stories
