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We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls.
Bill Bryson
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Bill Bryson
Age: 72
Born: 1951
Born: December 8
Author
Autobiographer
Journalist
Science Communicator
Science Writer
Travel Writer
Writer
Des Moines
Iowa
William Bryson
William Bill McGuire Bryson
William McGuire Bryson
Used
Civilizations
Malls
Badass
Architect
Shopping
Architecture
Build
Civilization
More quotes by Bill Bryson
There is more difference between a zebra and a horse, or between a dolphin and a porpoise, than there is between you and the furry creatures your distant ancestors left behind when they set out to take over the world.
Bill Bryson
There is the odd exception, like Albert Einstein, but as a breed, scientists tend not be very good at presenting themselves.
Bill Bryson
Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football.
Bill Bryson
Yes, U.S. travelers dress better. The British are always so conspicuous in hot climates. They don't seem to wear shorts. American men seem to be comfortable wearing hot-weather clothing.
Bill Bryson
Britain still has the most reliably beautiful countryside of anywhere in the world. I would hate to be part of the generation that allowed that to be lost.
Bill Bryson
You can be a scientist and believe in god: the two can go hand in hand.
Bill Bryson
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
... it occurred to me that never again would he be seven years, one month and six days old, so we had better catch these moments while we can.
Bill Bryson
What is it about maps? I could look at them all day, earnestly studying the names of towns and villages I have never heard of and will never visit.
Bill Bryson
Romans park their cars the way I would park if I had just spilled a beaker of hydrochloric acid on my lap.
Bill Bryson
My first rule of consumerism is never to buy anything you can't make your children carry.
Bill Bryson
Germans are flummoxed by humor, the Swiss have no concept of fun, the Spanish think there is nothing at all ridiculous about eating dinner at midnight, and the Italians should never, ever have been let in on the invention of the motor car.
Bill Bryson
Still, I never really mind bad service in a restaurant. It makes me feel better about not leaving a tip.
Bill Bryson
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.
Bill Bryson
It is always quietly thrilling to find yourself looking at a world you know well but have never seen from such an angle before.
Bill Bryson
When you consider it from a human perspective, and clearly it would be difficult for us to do otherwise, life is an odd thing. It couldn't wait to get going, but then, having gotten going, it seemed in very little hurry to move on.
Bill Bryson
Cheapness is a great virtue.
Bill Bryson
Clearly, some time ago makers and consumers of American junk food passed jointly through some kind of sensibility barrier in the endless quest for new taste sensations. Now they are a little like those desperate junkies who have tried every known drug and are finally reduced to mainlining toilet bowl cleanser in an effort to get still higher.
Bill Bryson
English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin, a language with which it has precious little in common.
Bill Bryson
I love everything about motels. I can't help myself. I still get excited every time I slip a key into a motel room door and fling it open.
Bill Bryson