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. - Bill Bryson 1 Share Now -
If you drive to, say, Shenandoah National Park, or the Great Smoky Mountains, you'll get some appreciation for the scale and beauty of the outdoors. When you walk into it, then you see it in a completely different way. You discover it in a much slower, more majestic sort of way. - Bill Bryson 2 Share Now -
You don't need a science degree to understand about science. You just need to think about it. - Bill Bryson 3 Share Now -
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 4 Share Now -
An awful lot of England is slowly eroding, in ways that I find really distressing, and an awful lot of it is the hedgerows... We're reaching the point where a lot of the English countryside looks just like Iowa - just kind of open space. - Bill Bryson 5 Share Now -
Open your refrigerator door, and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century. The world at night, for much of history, was a very dark place indeed. - Bill Bryson 6 Share Now -
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. - Bill Bryson 7 Share Now -
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. - Bill Bryson 8 Share Now -
The first book I did - the first successful book - was a kind of a travel book, and publishers in Britain encouraged me to do more. - Bill Bryson 9 Share Now -
All the things that are part of your heritage make you British - that makes this country what it is. It's part of your history. And here, unlike America, it's still living history. - Bill Bryson 10 Share Now -
