This much may have happened many times before. But this ancestral packet did something additional and extraordinary. It cleaved itself and produced an heir.
BILL BRYSONWoods 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.
More Bill Bryson Quotes
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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.
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It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as players – more if they are moderately restless.
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Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being.
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It had no practical application in his lifetime, but today, thanks to computers, is routinely used in the modelling of climate change, astrophysics and stock-market analysis.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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They make you feel small & confused & vulnerable, like a small child lost in a crowd of strange legs. Stand in a desert or prairie & you know you are in a big space. Stand in the woods and you only sense it. They are vast, featureless nowhere. And they are alive.
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Still, I never really mind bad service in a restaurant. It makes me feel better about not leaving a tip.
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I still enjoy traveling a lot. I mean, it amazes me that I still get excited in hotel rooms just to see what kind of shampoo they’ve left me.
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Your pillow alone may be home to 40 million bed mites. (To them your head is just one large oily bon-bon). And don’t think a clean pillow-case will make a difference…
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I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this all at once, every moment, on the trail or off.
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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.
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Cheapness is a great virtue.
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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.
BILL BRYSON