... it occurred to me that never again would he be seven years, one month and six days old, so we had better catch these moments while we can.
Bill BrysonIn 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.
Bill BrysonThe people are immensely likableโ cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted, and unfailingly obliging. Their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water. They have a society that is prosperous, well ordered, and instinctively egalitarian. The food is excellent. The beer is cold. The sun nearly always shines. There is coffee on every corner. Life doesn't get much better than this.
Bill BrysonOut of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just elevenโcorn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oatsโaccount for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors.
Bill Bryson