Bill Bryson

I want things to be better all the time. And I tend to get angry about that. Books are an opportunity to vent. ”

I painted myself into a corner by writing a whole book on this one period. The summer of 1927 came to an end, but nothing else did - all of these peoples' lives went on. ”

For a long time, I'd been vaguely fascinated by the idea that Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic and Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in the same summer. ”

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. ”

I've been wanting to do a book about baseball for the longest time, and nobody will let me do it. It's the one thing from America I really miss. ”

I don't know whether I'm misanthropic. It seems to me I'm constantly disappointed. I'm very easily disappointed. Disappointed in the things that people do; disappointed in the things that people construct. I want things to be better all the time. ”

There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age. ”

In order to have quality journalism you need to have a good income stream, and no Internet model has produced a way of generating income that would pay for good-quality investigative journalism. ”

A world without newspapers or a world where the newspapers are purely electronic and you read them on a screen is not a very appealing world. ”

Coming back to your native land after an absence of many years is a surprisingly unsettling business, a little like waking from a long coma. Time, you discover, has wrought changes that leave you feeling mildly foolish and out of touch. ”