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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

The average Southerner has the speech patterns of someone slipping in and out of consciousness. I can change my shoes and socks faster than most people in Mississippi can speak a sentence.
BILL BRYSON

Average People Shoes
I think it’s only right that crazy people should have their own city, but I cannot for the life of me see why a sane person would want to go there.
BILL BRYSON

City Crazy Own Thinking
There is something about the momentum of travel that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop.
BILL BRYSON

Momentum Moving Want
Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously.
BILL BRYSON

Cosmopolitanism Dynamic Simultaneously Socks Suits Wealth
Among the errors cited in this book are a number committed by some of the leading authorities of this century. If men such as Fowler and Bernstein and Quirk and Howard cannot always get their English right, is it reasonable to expect the rest of us to?
BILL BRYSON

Among Books Century Cities Critics Flower Leading Some
Traveling makes you realize what an immeasurably nice place much of America could be if only people possessed the same instinct for preservation as they do in Europe.
BILL BRYSON

Europe Nice Travel
Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days – that’s walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls – adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day.
BILL BRYSON

Around Average Shopping Supermarket Walking
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

Country Ice Cream Sides Standard Tea
As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.
BILL BRYSON

Ability Existence Human Multitude Privilege Singular
But I got a great deal else from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for the wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of woods.
BILL BRYSON

Beneath Gained Home Sleep Stars
Finally, this being America, there is the constant possibility of murder.
BILL BRYSON

Country Murder Possibility
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

Climate Men Weather
By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.
BILL BRYSON

Eternity Moment Time Together Universe
You are going to have a day without even the tiniest of pleasures; you are going to drive across Ohio.
BILL BRYSON

Across Country Even Going Without
Des Moines is like your typical American city; it’s just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.
BILL BRYSON

Circles Cities Typical
I wanted to see what was out there. All over America today people would be dragging themselves to work, stuck in traffic jams, wreathed in exhaust smoke. I was going for a walk in the woods. I was more than ready for this.
BILL BRYSON

Going Themselves Wanted Wood Work Wreathed

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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