Bill Bryson Quotes About Country
-
All the things that are part of your heritage make you British - that makes this country what it is. It's part of your history. And here, unlike America, it's still living history.
→ -
I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.
→ -
But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
→ -
I can't imagine there has ever been a more gratifying time or place to be alive than America in the 1950s. No country had ever known such prosperity.
→ -
Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain - which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad - old churches, country lanes, people saying 'Mustn't grumble,' and 'I'm terribly sorry but,' people apologizing to ME when I conk them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, seaside piers, Ordnance Survey maps, tea and crumpets, summer showers and foggy winter evenings - every bit of it.
→ -
So here I am, my affections torn between a postal service that never feeds me but can tackle a challenge and one that gives me free tape and prompt service but won't help me out when I can't remember a street name. The lesson to draw from this, of course, is that when you move from one country to another you have to accept that there are some things that are better and some things worse, and there is nothing you can do about it. That may not be the profoundest of insights to take away from a morning's outing, but I did get a free doughnut as well, so on balance I guess I'm happy.
→ -
Australians are very unfair in this way. They spend half of any conversation insisting that the country's dangers are vastly overrated and that there's nothing to worry about, and the other half telling you how six months ago their Uncle Bob was driving to Mudgee when a tiger snake slid out from under the dashboard and bit him on the groin, but that it's okay now because he's off the life support machine and they've discovered he can communicate with eye blinks.
→ -
In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not.
→ -
I always wanted to do a baseball book; I love baseball. The problem is that a very large part of my following is in non-baseball playing countries.
→ -
I had to drive to Minneapolis once, and went on a back road just to see the country. But there was nothing to see. It's just flat and hot, and full of corn and soybeans and hogs. Every once in a while you come across a farm or some dead little town where the liveliest thing is the flies.
→
Related Authors
-
Charles Lindbergh Aviator -
Jon Krakauer Writer -
Simon Winchester Author -
Bruce Chatwin Novelist -
David Sedaris Humorist -
Malcolm Gladwell Journalist -
Ethan Gilsdorf Writer -
Robert Redford Actor -
J. Maarten Troost Writer -
Mary Roach Author -
Richard P. Feynman Physicist -
Kurt Vonnegut Writer -
Christopher Hitchens Author -
Nick Nolte Actor -
Emma Thompson Actress -
Douglas Adams Writer -
Terry Pratchett Author -
Ryszard Kapuscinski Journalist -
Paul Theroux Film writer