Bill Bryson

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

I come from Des Moines. Someone had to.

I 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.

In the countryside, litter doesn't have a friend. It doesn't have anybody who's saying, 'Wait a minute, this is really starting to get out of control.'

I can wear a baseball cap; I am entitled to wear a baseball cap. I am genetically pre-disposed to wear a baseball cap, whereas most English people look wrong in a baseball cap.

I once joked in a book that there are three things you can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he is ready to see you, and you can't go home again. Since the spring of 1995, I have been quietly, even gamely, reassessing point number three.