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Every kid I knew had a father with a little stash of men’s magazines which the father thought was secret and which the kid knew all about.

Bill Bryson

I’m quite certain that if the rest of the world vanished overnight and the development of cricket were left in Australian hands, within a generation, the players would be wearing shorts and using the bats to hit each other, and the thing is, it’d be a much better game for it.
BILL BRYSON

Games Generation Hands Player Vanish
Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.
BILL BRYSON

Kind Physics Simplicity
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
Christmas tree stands are the work of the devil and they want you dead.
BILL BRYSON

Devil Tree Want
But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. 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.
BILL BRYSON

Country Memorable Travel
Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
BILL BRYSON

Cross Rudimentary Street Suddenly Things Work
Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet.
BILL BRYSON

Age Coffee Figure Nylon Planet
Every living thing is an elaboration of a single original plan. As humans we are mere increments – each of us a musty archive of adjustments, adaptations, modifications and providential tinkerings stretching back to 3,8 billion years.
BILL BRYSON

Profound Vegetables Years
To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response.
BILL BRYSON

Noises Sentences Separate Stream Understand
I always wanted to do a baseball book; I love baseball. The problem is that a very large part of my following is in non-baseball playing countries.
BILL BRYSON

Baseball Book Country Problem
So that buildings and structures you normally pass without a glance suddenly become arresting, even beautiful? Well, they seem to have that light in Australia nearly all the time.
BILL BRYSON

Arresting Building Country Nearly Structures Time
When the Duke [W.J.C. Scott-Bentinck] died, his heirs found all of the aboveground rooms devoid of furnishings except for one chamber in the middle of which sat the Duke’s commode. The main hall was mysteriously floor less. Most of the rooms were painted pink.
BILL BRYSON

Chamber Dark Dukes Men
There is the odd exception, like Albert Einstein, but as a breed, scientists tend not be very good at presenting themselves.
BILL BRYSON

Odd Scientist Very Good
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
Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal.
BILL BRYSON

Benefits Hiking Journey
There are things you just can’t do in life. You can’t beat the phone company, you can’t make a waiter see you until he’s ready to see you, and you can’t go home again.
BILL BRYSON

Home House Phones

Every kid I knew had a father with a little stash of men’s magazines which the father thought was secret and which the kid knew all about.

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Every kid I knew had a father with a little stash of men’s magazines which the father thought was secret and which the kid knew all about.

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