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

I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed.

Bill Bryson

I come from Des Moines. Someone had to.

Bill Bryson

I often feel I'm a disappointment to people because they expect me to be the guy in the books. When I sit next to someone at a dinner party I can see they expect me to be quick and witty, and I'm not at all.

Bill Bryson

I'm not a natural story-teller. Put a keyboard in front of me and I'm fine, but stand me up in front of an audience and I'm actually quite shy and reserved.

Bill Bryson

Personally, I've never been attracted to danger. It's not my sort of thing. I am more attracted to pubs and cafes. The known, safe and comfortable world.

Bill Bryson

I grew up, really, in the days before air conditioning. So I can remember what it was like to be really hot, for instance, and I can remember what it was like when your barber shop and your local stores weren't air conditioned, so it was hot when you...

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

My first rule of consumerism is never to buy anything you can't make your children carry.

Bill Bryson

A world without newspapers or a world where the newspapers are purely electronic and you read them on a screen is not a very appealing world.

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

I'm definitely an American, because I grew up here. But I've lived very happily in Britain.

Bill Bryson

I sometimes think I cannot write another passage about a disappointing meal ever again, because I've done it so many times.

Bill Bryson

The whole of the global economy is based on supplying the cravings of two per cent of the world's population.

Bill Bryson

When you tell an Iowan a joke, you can see a kind of race going on between his brain and his expression.

Bill Bryson

I've never quite understood that feeling: that you arrive in a strange place, yet you want to have nothing but familiar experiences.

Bill Bryson

Much as I resented having to grow up in Des Moines, it gave me a real appreciation for every place in the world that's not Des Moines.

Bill Bryson

The basic challenge of any book is you know you're going to be working on it for three or four years or more. So you want to have a subject that will keep you engaged.

Bill Bryson

One of the brilliant things about Britain is the way you've managed to save old things but to keep using them - that they've not just become museums the way they do in the United States.

Bill Bryson

I could give you a long list of things I like about Britain, but essentially what it comes down to is that I feel about Britain the same way I feel about my wife. I'm crazy about my wife - we just kind of suit each other. I wouldn't say that she's th...

Bill Bryson

Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls - you don't find a sense of community in malls.

Bill Bryson

America is a very seductive place in terms of lifestyle and comfort, but it wasn't for me.

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