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Bill Bryson Biography

William McGuire Bryson OBE HonFRS (/ˈbraɪsən/; born 8 December 1951) is an Anglo-American author of books on travel, the English language, science, and other non-fiction topics. Born in the United States, he has been a resident of Britain for most of his adult life, returning to the United States between 1995 and 2003. He served as the chancellor of Durham University from 2005 to 2011.

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Bill Bryson Quotes

I come from Des Moines. Someone had to.

Come, Des, Des Moines, Moines

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. '

Friend, Minutes, Saying, Starting, Waiting

A world without newspapers or a world where the newspapers are purely electronic and you read them on a screen is not a very appealing world.

Newspapers, Purely, Read, Screens, World

The taipan is the one to watch out for. It is the most poisonous snake on Earth, with a lunge so swift and a venom so potent that your last mortal utterance is likely to be: "I say, is that a sn--

Likely, Mortal, Snakes, Utterance, Watch, Watches

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.

Hours, Lady, Men, Shop, Twelve

At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as "the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance. " That is jargon - the practice of never calling a spade a spade when you might instead call it a manual earth-restructuring implement - and it is one of the great curses of modern English.

America, Conference, Fantasizing, Feelings, Obsessive, Practice

As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you. ' And I always used to think, 'So?

Father, Son, Think, Thinking, Used

Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls - you don't find a sense of community in malls.

Activity, Community, Downtown, Iowa, Shops

The people are immensely likable— cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted, and unfailingly obliging. Their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered, and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Beer, Cities, Coffee, Corner, Extrovert, Nearly

Every living thing is an elaboration of a single original plan. As humans we are mere increments - each of us a musty archive of adjustments, adaptations, modifications and providential tinkerings stretching back to 3,8 billion years. Remarkably we are even quite closely related to fruit and vegetables. About half the chemical functions that take place in a banana are fundamentally the same as the chemical functions that place in you. It cannot be said too often: all life is one. That is, and I suspect will ever prove to be, the most profound true statement there is.

Adaptations, Profound, Quite, Same, Vegetables, Years

My first rule of travel is never to go to a place that sounds like a medical condition and Critz is clearly an incurable disease involving flaking skin.

Involving, Judging, Rule, Skin, Skins, Travel

I sat on a toilet watching the water run thinking what an odd thing tourism is. You fly off to a strange land, eagerly abandoning all the comforts of home and then expend vast quantities of time and money in a largely futile effort to recapture the comforts you wouldn’t have lost if you hadn’t left home in the first place.

Fly, Home, Recapture, Running, Toilet, Travel

[The Royal Society] is quite simply the voice of science in Britain. It is intellectually rigorous, not afraid to be outspoken on controversial issues such as climate change, but it is not aggressively secular either, insisting on a single view of the world. In fact, there are plenty of eminent scientists - Robert Winston, for instance - who are also men of faith.

Afraid, Fact, Faith, Intellectually, Men, Science

English is full of booby traps for the unwary foreigner. Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel, and a critical part of a gentleman's apparel is clearly asking to be mangled.

Annoying, Asking, Gentleman, Mean, Signifies, Traps

And before long there will be no more milk in bottles delivered to the doorstep or sleepy rural pubs, and the countryside will be mostly shopping centers and theme parks. Forgive me. I don't mean to get upset. But you are taking my world away from me, piece by little piece, and sometimes it just pisses me off. Sorry.

Delivered, Mean, Shopping, Sorry, Theme

Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.

Good Advice, Outstanding, Real, Things, World

Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.

Drowned, Genetic, Order, Quest, Quests, Tiny

The best that can be said for Norwegian television is that it gives you the sensation of a coma without the worry and inconvenience.

Giving, Norwegian, Said, Television, Worry

I think it's only right that crazy people should have their own city, but I cannot for the life of me see why a sane person would want to go there.

City, Crazy, People, See, Should Have, Thinking

Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.

Electrons, Give, Giving, Identity, Personality

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