Bill Bryson

I don't plan to write another science book, but I don't plan not to. I do enjoy writing histories, and taking subjects that are generally dull and trying to make them interesting. ”

In a funny way, nothing makes you feel more like a native of your own country than to live where nearly everyone is not. ”

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. ”

I'm not funny in person. I mean I'm really not. I'm one of those people who always screw up anecdotes. ”

I like to do books in which a lot of the research and the writing and the thinking revolves around something American. ”

Although I was always very happy in Britain, I never stopped thinking of America as home, in the fundamental sense of the term. It was where I came from, what I really understood, the base against which all else was measured. ”

Science has been quite embattled. It's the most important thing there is. An arts graduate is not going to fix global warming. They may do other valuable things, but they are not going to fix the planet or cure cancer or get rid of malaria. ”

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. ”

I see litter as part of a long continuum of anti-social behaviour. ”

Boston's freeway system is insane. It was clearly designed by a person who had spent his childhood crashing toy trains. ”