American - Writer | December 8, 1951 -
I grew up, really, in the days before air conditioning. So I can remember what it was like to be really hot, for instance, and I can remember what it was like when your barber shop and your local stores weren't air conditioned, so it was hot when you went in them and they propped the doors open.
Bill Bryson
DoorsRememberYouI CanBarberHot
I come from Des Moines. Someone had to.
SomeoneComeHadDes Moines
More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to.
PeopleWorldRestSpeakSometimes
When you tell an Iowan a joke, you can see a kind of race going on between his brain and his expression.
BrainYouKindRaceSeeTell
America is a great disappointment to me. As I said in one of my books, other societies create civilisations; we build shopping malls.
GreatDisappointmentMeShopping
The real problem you get with humour is that you only have so many kinds of jokes within you, and you mine that vein a lot. This isn't just common to me; it's anybody who's funny.
FunnyMeProblemYouHumourJokes
Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls - you don't find a sense of community in malls.
CommunityYouFindNowUpEconomic
England was full of words I'd never heard before - streaky bacon, short back and sides, Belisha beacon, serviettes, high tea, ice-cream cornet.
WordsTeaShortBackNeverHigh
I have made a career of bumbling around places, stumbling on landmarks and generally being quite haphazard and shambolic about the way I go about things.
CareerGoPlacesWayThingsBeing
Nobody gets excited about the future at all, ever. The future is something we find depressing and worrisome.
FutureFindNobodyExcitedSomething
The world is very lucky to have America. It's got to be the first time in the whole history of the planet that a country has been the dominant force in the world and it has actually been a force for good... America really deserves more credit.
GoodHistoryTimeWorldCredit
I once joked in a book that there are three things you can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he is ready to see you, and you can't go home again. Since the spring of 1995, I have been quietly, even gamely, reassessing point number three.
LifeHomeSpringBookYouPhone
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