Human beings would split the atom and invent television, nylon, and instant coffee before they could figure out the age of their own planet.
Bill BrysonEnglish grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin, a language with which it has precious little in common.
Bill BrysonI 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.
Bill BrysonSo, if people didnโt settle down to take up farming, why then did they embark on this entirely new way of living? We have no idea โ or actually, we have lots of ideas, but we donโt know if any of them are right. According to Felipe Fernรกndez-Armesto, at least thirty-eight theories have been put forward to explain why people took to living in communities: that they were driven to it by climatic change, or by a wish to stay near their dead, or by a powerful desire to brew and drink beer, which could only be indulged by staying in one place.
Bill BrysonEvery atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numberous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms-up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested-probably once belonged to Shakespeare. A billion more each came from Buddha and Genghis Khan and Beethoven, and any other historical figure you care to name.
Bill BrysonWhen the Duke [W.J.C. Scott-Bentinck] died, his heirs found all of the aboveground rooms devoid of furnishings except for one chamber in the middle of which sat the Duke's commode. The main hall was mysteriously floor less. Most of the rooms were painted pink. The one upstairs room in which the Duke had resided was packed to the ceiling with hundreds of green boxes, each of which contained a single dark brown wig. This was, in short, a man worth getting to know.
Bill Bryson