Bill Bryson · 288 pages
Rating: (48.9K votes)
“I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“It was an especially wonderful time to be a noisy moron.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“It’s a bit burned,” my mother would say apologetically at every meal, presenting you with a piece of meat that looked like something — a much-loved pet perhaps — salvaged from a tragic house fire. “But I think I scraped off most of the burned part,” she would add, overlooking that this included every bit of it that had once been flesh.
Happily, all this suited my father. His palate only responded to two tastes - burned and ice cream — so everything suited him so long as it was sufficiently dark and not too startlingly flavorful. Theirs truly was a marriage made in heaven, for no one could burn food like my mother or eat it like my dad.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“I used to give X-ray vision a lot of thought because I couldn’t see how it could work. I mean, if you could see through people’s clothing, then surely you would also see through their skin and right into their bodies. You would see blood vessels, pulsing organs, food being digested and pushed through coils of bowel, and much else of a gross and undesirable nature. Even if you could somehow confine your X-rays to rosy epidermis, any body you gazed at wouldn’t be in an appealing natural state, but would be compressed and distorted by unseen foundation garments. The breasts, for one thing, would be oddly constrained and hefted, basketed within an unseen bra, rather than relaxed and nicely jiggly. It wouldn’t be satisfactory at all—or at least not nearly satisfactory enough. Which is why it was necessary to perfect ThunderVision™, a laserlike gaze that allowed me to strip away undergarments without damaging skin or outer clothing. That ThunderVision, stepped up a grade and focused more intensely, could also be used as a powerful weapon to vaporize irritating people was a pleasing but entirely incidental benefit.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“They talk about big skies in the western United States, and they may indeed have them, but you have never seen such lofty clouds, such towering anvils, as in Iowa in July.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“How do migrating birds know which one to follow? What if the lead bird just wants to be alone?”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“As a rule, you knew it was time to eat when you could hear potatoes exploding in the oven. Happily, all this suited my father. His palate only responded to two tastes - burned and ice cream - so everything suited him so long as it was sufficiently dark and not startlingly flavorful. Theirs truly was a marriage made in heaven, for no one could burn food like my mother or eat it like my Dad.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“Imagine having a city full of things that no other city had.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“They were Republicans, Nixon Republicans, and so didn't subscribe to the notion that laws are supposed to apply to all people equally.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“IT WASN’T THAT MY MOTHER AND FATHER were indifferent to their children’s physical well-being by any means. It was just that they seemed to believe that everything would be fine in the end and they were always right.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“It's hard for people now to remember just how enormous the world was back then for everybody, and how far away even fairly nearby places were. When we called my grandparents long distance on the telephone in Winfield, something we hardly ever did, it sounded as if they were speaking to us from a distant star. We had to shout to be heard and plug a finger in an ear to catch their faint, tinny voices in return. They were only about a hundred miles away, but that was a pretty considerable distance even well into the 1950s. Anything farther - beyond Chicago or Kansas City, say - quickly became almost foreign. It wasn't just that Iowa was far from everywhere. Everywhere was far from everywhere.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“Mr. Schlubb, the pear-shaped PE teacher, sent us all out to run half a dozen laps around a preposterously enormous cinder track. For the Greenwood kids—all of us white, marshmallowy, innately unphysical, squinting unfamiliarly in the bright sunshine—it was a shock to the system of an unprecedented order.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“canvas tarpaulin, and a piece of old carpet. I’m not sure that they didn’t lay an old wardrobe on top of that, just to”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
“And when you got to the Trestle or the Vacant Lot or the Pond there would already be six hundred kids there. There were always six hundred kids everywhere except where two or more neighbourhoods met – at the Park, for instance – where the numbers would grow into the thousands. I once took part in an ice hockey game at the lagoon in Greenwood Park that involved four thousand kids, all slashing away violently with sticks, and went on for at least three quarters of an hour before anyone realized that we didn’t have a puck.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Bill Bryson
Born place: in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, The United States
Born date December 8, 1951
See more on GoodReads
“You don't belong to her and she doesn't belong to you, but you're both part of each other; if she got up and left now and walked away and you never saw each other again for the rest of your lives, and you lived an ordinary waking life for another fifty years, even so on your deathbed you would know she was part of you.”
― Iain Banks, quote from The Bridge
“If you don't read, I don't know how to communicate with you...I can never express who I am in my own words as powerfully as my books can.”
― Donalyn Miller, quote from The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child
“Wisdom can be gathered on your downtime. Wisdom that can change the very course of your life will come from the people you are around, the books you read, and the things you listen to or watch on radio or television. Of course, bad information is gathered in your downtime too. Bad information that can change the very course of your life will come from the people you are around, the books you read, and the things you listen to or watch on radio or television. One of wisdom's greatest benefits, is accurate discernment- the learned ability to immediately tell right from wrong. Good from evil. Acceptable from unacceptable. Time well spent from time wasted. The right decision from the wrong decision. And many times this is simply a matter of having the correct perspective. One way to define wisdom is THE ABILITY TO SEE, INTO THE FUTURE, THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR CHOICES IN THE PRESENT. That ability can give you a completely different perspective on what the future might look like... with a degree of intelligence and a hint of wisdom, most people can tell the difference between good and bad. However, it takes a truly wise person to discern the oh-so-thin line between good and best. And that line...[gives you the] perspective that allows you to see clearly the long-term consequences of your choices. ”
― Andy Andrews, quote from The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective
“Your answers lie here," Rovender said, gesturing around the library.”
― Tony DiTerlizzi, quote from The Search for WondLa
“Years ago a friend gave me what he called his 'Formula: How to Know Right from Wrong.' The formula asks four questions based on three verses in 1 Corinthians:
1. '"Everything is permissible for me"--but not everything is beneficial' (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Question 1: Is it helpful--physically, spiritually, and mentally?
2. '"Everything is permissible for me"--but I will not be mastered by anything' (1 Corinthians 6:12). Question 2: Does it bring me under its power?
3. 'Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall' (1 Corinthians 8:13).
Question 3: Does it hurt others?
4. 'So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God' (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Question 4: Does it glorify God?”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness
More Than Human
Make Me, Sir
Nobody's Hero
The Painted Girls
First Love
The Light in the Rui...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
