Quote

Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football.

Bill Bryson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
People
Rules
Baseball
Asking
Infinitive
Football
Grammar
Language
Conform
Making
Latin
Play
English
Like
Using

More quotes by Bill Bryson

Image
In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a stroke that hydrogen is indeed explosively combustible and that eyebrows are not necessarily a permanent feature of one's face.
Bill Bryson
Image
America is a very seductive place in terms of lifestyle and comfort, but it wasn't for me.
Bill Bryson
Image
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
Image
I see litter as part of a long continuum of anti-social behaviour.
Bill Bryson
Image
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
Image
Consider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but the least ambitious.
Bill Bryson
Image
Still, I never really mind bad service in a restaurant. It makes me feel better about not leaving a tip.
Bill Bryson
Image
As a rule of thumb, I would submit that if you need to call your floss provider, for any reason, you are probably not ready for this level of oral hygiene.
Bill Bryson
Image
There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to split an infinitive, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans.
Bill Bryson
Image
Des Moines is like your typical American city it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.
Bill Bryson
Image
The number of people on whose cooperative efforts your eventual existence depends has risen to approximately 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, which is several thousand times the total number of people who have ever lived.
Bill Bryson
Image
The real problem you get with humour is that you only have so many kinds of jokes within you, and you mine that vein a lot. This isn't just common to me it's anybody who's funny.
Bill Bryson
Image
Houses aren't refuges from history. They are where history ends up.
Bill Bryson
Image
For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in the same summer.
Bill Bryson
Image
Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being.
Bill Bryson
Image
Taking a scenic route in Southeast Iowa is like talking about a good Barry Manilow album. You have to make certain allowances.
Bill Bryson
Image
The English invented cricket to make other human endeavors look interesting.
Bill Bryson
Image
He had the sort of face that makes you realize God does have a sense of humor.
Bill Bryson
Image
Perhaps it's my natural pessimism, but it seems that an awfully large part of travel these days is to see things while you still can.
Bill Bryson
Image
People don't talk like this, theytalklikethis. Syllables, words, sentences run together like a watercolour left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response.
Bill Bryson