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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

The upshot of all this is that we live in a universe whose age we can’t quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don’t altogether know, filled with matter we can’t identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understand.
BILL BRYSON

Distance Law Stars
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
That may not be the profoundest of insights to take away from a morning’s outing, but I did get a free doughnut as well, so on balance I guess I’m happy.
BILL BRYSON

Balance Guess Happy Insights Morning Outing Profounded
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

Looks Maps Mean Wonderful
English is full of booby traps for the unwary foreigner. Any language where the unassuming word fly signifies an annoying insect, a means of travel, and a critical part of a gentleman’s apparel is clearly asking to be mangled.
BILL BRYSON

Asking Gentleman Mean
A belief that no commercial activities must be allowed inside the park, but permitting unrestrained development outside, even though the landscape there may be just as outstanding.
BILL BRYSON

Commercial Development Outside Outstanding Permitting
Those who sniff decay in every shift of sense or alteration of usage do the language no service. Too often for such people the notion of good English has less to do with expressing ideas clearly than with making words conform to some arbitrary pattern.
BILL BRYSON

Decay Ideas People Usage Writing
Time, you discover, has wrought changes that leave you feeling mildly foolish and out of touch.
BILL BRYSON

Discover Feeling Leave Touch
Don’t you believe it. Bacteria may not build cities or have interesting social lives, but they will be here when the Sun explodes. This is their planet, and we are on it only because they allow us to be.
BILL BRYSON

Allow Believe Lives Social Sun
We live on a planet that has a more or less infinite capacity to surprise. What reasoning person could possibly want it any other way?
BILL BRYSON

Frustrating Infinite Live Person Possibly
At a conference of sociologists in America in 1977, love was defined as “the cognitive-affective state characterized by intrusive and obsessive fantasizing concerning reciprocity of amorant feelings by the object of the amorance.”.
BILL BRYSON

Country Feelings Practice
There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.
BILL BRYSON

Age Along Lightning Rolling
Woods are not like other spaces. To begin with, they are cubic. Their trees surround you, loom over you, press in from all sides. Woods choke off views & leave you muddled & without bearings.
BILL BRYSON

Children Confused Loom Press Views
And before long there will be no more milk in bottles delivered to the doorstep or sleepy rural pubs, and the countryside will be mostly shopping centers and theme parks.
BILL BRYSON

Mean Shopping Sorry
You can be a scientist and believe in god: the two can go hand in hand.
BILL BRYSON

Believe Hands Scientist
You don’t have to know anything about baseball to respond to Babe Ruth because he’s just this magnificent human being.
BILL BRYSON

Baseball Kids Successful

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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