American - Writer | December 8, 1951 -
We forget just how painfully dim the world was before electricity. A candle, a good candle, provides barely a hundredth of the illumination of a single 100 watt light bulb.
Bill Bryson
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There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age.
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I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth.
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There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition. At a stroke, the American government closed down the fifth largest industry in the United States - alcohol production - and just handed it to criminals - a pretty remarkable thing to do.
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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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Roads get wider and busier and less friendly to pedestrians. And all of the development based around cars, like big sprawling shopping malls. Everything seems to be designed for the benefit of the automobile and not the benefit of the human being.
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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.
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I understand cricket - what's going on, the scoring - but I can't understand why.
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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.
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I want things to be better all the time. And I tend to get angry about that. Books are an opportunity to vent.
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If you go out on the Appalachian Trail, you have to bring so much more equipment - a tent, sleeping bag - but if you go hiking in England, or Europe, generally, towns and villages are near enough together at the end of the day you can always go to a nice little inn and have a hot bath and something to drink.
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I had always thought that once you grew up you could do anything you wanted - stay up all night or eat ice-cream straight out of the container.
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