Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
South Dakota... is like the world's first drive-through sensory deprivation chamber.
Bill Bryson
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
World
Deprivation
Sensory
Chamber
Drive
South
Firsts
First
Like
Dakota
More quotes by Bill Bryson
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
I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city.
Bill Bryson
I come Des Moines. Somebody had to.
Bill Bryson
You may not feel outstandingly robust, but if you are an average-sized adult you will contain within your modest frame no less than 7 X 10^18 joules of potential energy—enough to explode with the force of thirty very large hydrogen bombs, assuming you knew how to liberate it and really wished to make a point.
Bill Bryson
I can wear a baseball cap I am entitled to wear a baseball cap. I am genetically pre-disposed to wear a baseball cap, whereas most English people look wrong in a baseball cap.
Bill Bryson
I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family.
Bill Bryson
There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.
Bill Bryson
Before, prior to. There is no difference between these two except length and a certain affectedness on the part of 'prior to.' To paraphrase Bernstein, if you would use 'posterior to' instead of 'after,' then by all means use 'prior to' instead of 'before.
Bill Bryson
I don't want to go and start trying to make jokes in places like India, Tanzania or Iraq. Afghanistan is not a funny place.
Bill Bryson
Nearly a quarter of American men were in the Armed forces. The rest were in school, in prison, or were George W. Bush.
Bill Bryson
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.
Bill Bryson
Hardly anyone ever leaves. This is because Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic known to man. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES. THIS IS WHAT DEATH IS LIKE. There isn't really. I just made that up. But the place does get a grip on you.
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
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.
Bill Bryson
Life just wants to be but it doesn't want to be much.
Bill Bryson
I love the feeling of being anonymous in a city I've never been before.
Bill Bryson
Des Moines is like your typical American city it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.
Bill Bryson
You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a windblown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.
Bill Bryson
In my day, the principal concerns of university students were sex, smoking dope, rioting and learning. Learning was something you did only when the first three weren't available.
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