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Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal.

Bill Bryson

Because we humans are big and clever enough to produce and utilize antibiotics and disinfectants, it is easy to convince ourselves that we have banished bacteria to the fringes of existence.
BILL BRYSON

Believe Cities Clever
There is more difference between a zebra and a horse, or between a dolphin and a porpoise, than there is between you and the furry creatures your distant ancestors left behind when they set out to take over the world.
BILL BRYSON

Differences Horse Zebras
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
Most of what has lived on Earth has left behind no record at all.
BILL BRYSON

Earth Left Behind Records
The whole of the global economy is based on supplying the cravings of two per cent of the world’s population.
BILL BRYSON

Population Two World
A world without newspapers or a world where the newspapers are purely electronic and you read them on a screen is not a very appealing world.
BILL BRYSON

Newspapers Screens World
There is always a little more toothpaste in the tube. Think about it.
BILL BRYSON

Littles Thinking Toothpaste
Finally, this being America, there is the constant possibility of murder.
BILL BRYSON

Country Murder Possibility
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.’
BILL BRYSON

Control Minutes Starting Waiting
South Dakota… is like the world’s first drive-through sensory deprivation chamber.
BILL BRYSON

Deprivation Firsts World
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
But here’s an extrememly salient point: we have been chosen, by fate or Providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is.
BILL BRYSON

Chosen Far Providence Whatever Wish
For most of us the rules of English grammar are at best a dimly remembered thing. But even for those who make the rules, grammatical correctitude sometimes proves easier to urge than to achieve.
BILL BRYSON

Book Grammatically Men Remembered Writing
I love the feeling of being anonymous in a city I’ve never been before.
BILL BRYSON

Anonymous Cities Feelings Travel
Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.
BILL BRYSON

Geologist Loss Paperweight
It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards either. A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much viatmin C as the average person today.
BILL BRYSON

Average Consumed People Protein Today Typical

Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal.

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Four times I was honked at for having the temerity to proceed through town without the benefit of metal.

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