Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson
William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, FRSis a best-selling Anglo-American author of books on travel, the English language, science, and other non-fiction topics. Born in the United States, he has been a resident of Britain for most of his adult life, returning to America between 1995 and 2003. He served as the chancellor of Durham University from 2005 to 2011...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 December 1951
CityDes Moines, IA
CountryUnited States of America
Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numberous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.
There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.
If you can imagine a man having a vasectomy without anesthetic to the sound of frantic sitar-playing, you will have some idea of what popular Turkish music is like.
We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls.
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.
I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.
In terms of adaptability, humans are pretty amazingly useless.
Most of what has lived on Earth has left behind no record at all.
... 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.
It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.
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.
Energy is liberated matter, matter is energy waiting to happen.
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.'
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 nice little inn and have a hot bath and something to drink.