Bill Bryson Quotes & Sayings

“There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition. At a stroke, the American government closed down the fifth largest industry in the United States - alcohol production - and just handed it to criminals - a pretty remarkable thing to do.”

“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.”

“I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth.”

“There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.”

“In the countryside, litter doesn't have a friend. It doesn't have anybody who's saying, 'Wait a minute, this is really starting to get out of control.'”

“I see litter as part of a long continuum of anti-social behaviour.”

“If you drive to, say, Shenandoah National Park, or the Great Smoky Mountains, you'll get some appreciation for the scale and beauty of the outdoors. When you walk into it, then you see it in a completely different way. You discover it in a much slower, more majestic sort of way.”

“I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted - stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container.”

“The remarkable position in which we find ourselves is that we don't actually know what we actually know.”

“In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not.”