Taxonomy is described sometimes as a science and sometimes as an art, but really it’s a battleground. Bill Bryson More Quotes by Bill Bryson More Quotes From Bill Bryson By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were full of vast puddles where the drains where unable to cope with the volume of water. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would think that if one nation ought by now to have mastered the science of drainage, Britain would be it. Bill Bryson coffee rain thinking 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. Bill Bryson pride use book A sign in the yard of a church next door said CHRIST IS THE ANSWER. (The question, of course, is: What do you say when you strike your thumb with a hammer?) Bill Bryson yards church doors "Croissant": However you choose to pronounce it at home, it is perhaps worth nothing that outside the United States, the closer you can come to saying "kwass-ohn," the sooner you can expect to be presented with one. Bill Bryson croissants united-states home My mother only ever said two things. She said,'I don't know, dear.'And she said,'Can I get you a sandwich, honey? Bill Bryson sandwiches mother two It sometimes occurs to me that the British have more heritage than isgood for them. Bill Bryson british heritage sometimes Nearly a quarter of American men were in the Armed forces. The rest were in school, in prison, or were George W. Bush. Bill Bryson prison men school I had spent the whole of my savings ... on a suit for the wedding - a remarkable piece of apparel with lapels that had been modelled on the tail fins of a 1957 Coupe de Ville and trousers so copiously flared that when I walked you didn't see my legs move. Bill Bryson pieces fashion moving Cheapness is a great virtue. Bill Bryson cheapness virtue I'm quite certain that if the rest of the world vanished overnight and the development of cricket were left in Australian hands, within a generation, the players would be wearing shorts and using the bats to hit each other, and the thing is, it'd be a much better game for it. Bill Bryson player games hands 18th century scientists, the French in particular, seldom did things simply if an absurdly demanding alternative was available. Bill Bryson scientist alternatives century On the dashboard of our family car is a shallow indentation about the size of a paperback book. If you are looking for somewhere to put your sunglasses or spare change, it is the obvious place, and it works extremely well, I must say, so long as the car is not actually moving. However, as soon as you put the car in motion ... everything slides off ... It can hold nothing that has not been nailed to it. So I ask you: what then is it for? Bill Bryson long book moving 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. Bill Bryson husband sleep two Consider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but the least ambitious. Bill Bryson visible ambitious earth I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored. Bill Bryson bored boring moments There seemed to be a mystifying universal conspiracy among textbook authors to make certain the material they dealt with never strayed too near the realm of the mildly interesting and was always at least a long-distance phone call from the frankly interesting. Bill Bryson distance phones long Entirely incidentally, a little-known fact about Shakespeare is that his father moved to Stratford-upon-Avon from a nearby village shortly before his son's birth. Had he not done so, the Bard of Avon would instead be known as the rather less ringing Bard of Snitterfield. Bill Bryson done father son When the poet Paul Valery once asked Albert Einstein if he kept a notebook to record his ideas, Einstein looked at him with mild but genuine surprise. "Oh, that's not necessary," he replied . "It's so seldom I have one. Bill Bryson records notebook ideas A third...candidate for Shakespearean authorship was Christopher Marlowe. He was the right age (just two months older than Shakespeare), had the requisite talent, and would certainly have had ample leisure after 1593, assuming he wasn't too dead to work. Bill Bryson leisure age two I was heading to Nebraska. Now there's a sentence you don't want to say too often if you can possibly help it. Bill Bryson nebraska want helping
