Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines. Bill Bryson More Quotes by Bill Bryson More Quotes From Bill Bryson The number of people on whose cooperative efforts your eventual existence depends has risen to approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, which is several thousand times the total number of people who have ever lived. Bill Bryson effort numbers people In terms of adaptability, humans are pretty amazingly useless. Bill Bryson adaptability term useless Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal. Bill Bryson benefits hiking journey 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. Bill Bryson eight powerful beer 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. Bill Bryson distance feet two It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously. Bill Bryson worst-nightmares achievement may Traveling is more fun - hell, life is more fun - if you can treat it as a series of impulses. Bill Bryson hell life-is fun When I awoke it was daylight. The inside of my tent was coated in a curious flaky rime, which I realized after a moment was all of my nighttime snores, condensed and frozen and pasted to the fabric, as if into a scrapbook of respiratory memories. Bill Bryson fabric frozen memories Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. Bill Bryson baseball latin football Most of what has lived on Earth has left behind no record at all. Bill Bryson left-behind records earth Most big companies don't like you very much, except hotels, airlines and Microsoft, which don't like you at all. Bill Bryson microsoft america world 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. Bill Bryson nice sleep europe There are things you just can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he's ready to see you, and you can't go home again. Bill Bryson phones house home The tearoom lady called me love. All the shop ladies called me love and most of the men called me mate. I hadn't been here twelve hours and already they loved me. Bill Bryson twelve hours men I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city. Bill Bryson arriving cities travel Perhaps it's my natural pessimism, but it seems that an awfully large part of travel these days is to see things while you still can. Bill Bryson pessimism memorable travel Boston's freeway system is insane. It was clearly designed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains. Bill Bryson boston childhood insane There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age. Bill Bryson rolling-along lightning age We forget just how painfully dim the world was before electricity. A candle, a good candle, provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100 watt light bulb. Bill Bryson illumination light world South Dakota... is like the world's first drive-through sensory deprivation chamber. Bill Bryson deprivation world firsts
