Quotes by Bill Bryson

About Bill Bryson:

William McGuire is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and science. Born in the United States, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before returning to America in 1995. In 2003 Bryson and his wife and four children moved back to Britain, living in the old rectory of Wramplingham, Norfolk, and he served as chancellor of Durham University from 2005 through 2011.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In any area of human endeavour, there is going to be mediocrity. You're going to find people who get money that they shouldn't get.

Bill Bryson

You don't need a science degree to understand about science. You just need to think about it.

Bill Bryson

I don't plan to write another science book, but I don't plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting.

Bill Bryson

Science has been quite embattled. It's the most important thing there is. An arts graduate is not going to fix global warming. They may do other valuable things, but they are not going to fix the planet or cure cancer or get rid of malaria.

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

The remarkable position in which we find ourselves is that we don't actually know what we actually know.

Bill Bryson

Boston's freeway system is insane. It was clearly designed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains.

Bill Bryson

I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted - stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container.

Bill Bryson

I understand cricket - what's going on, the scoring - but I can't understand why.

Bill Bryson

I still enjoy traveling a lot. I mean, it amazes me that I still get excited in hotel rooms just to see what kind of shampoo they've left me.

Bill Bryson

England was full of words I'd never heard before - streaky bacon, short back and sides, Belisha beacon, serviettes, high tea, ice-cream cornet.

Bill Bryson

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.'

Bill Bryson

An awful lot of England is slowly eroding, in ways that I find really distressing, and an awful lot of it is the hedgerows... We're reaching the point where a lot of the English countryside looks just like Iowa - just kind of open space.

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

It is unthinkable to have a British countryside that doesn't have actual functioning farmers riding tractors, cows in fields, things like that.

Bill Bryson

I see litter as part of a long continuum of anti-social behaviour.

Bill Bryson

Book tours are really kind of fun. You get to stay in nice hotels, you are driven everywhere in big silver cars, you are treated as if you are much more important than you are, you can eat steak three times a day at someone else's expense, and you ge...

Bill Bryson

If you go out on the Appalachian Trail, you have to bring so much more equipment - a tent, sleeping bag - but if you go hiking in England, or Europe, generally, towns and villages are near enough together at the end of the day you can always go to a ...

Bill Bryson

Maine is wonderful. It can be very hard. I mean, if you look at the profile maps it doesn't look it, but somehow when you get out there it's really steep and hard.

Bill Bryson

I have made a career of bumbling around places, stumbling on landmarks and generally being quite haphazard and shambolic about the way I go about things.

Bill Bryson

Roads get wider and busier and less friendly to pedestrians. And all of the development based around cars, like big sprawling shopping malls. Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being.

Bill Bryson

Author Bio

  • NameBill Bryson
  • DescriptionAmerican author
  • BornDecember 8, 1951
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionJournalist; Travel Writer; Autobiographer; Science Writer; Popularizer Of Science
  • AwardsOfficer Of The Order Of The British Empire; Zilveren Griffel