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  1. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    Victorian rigidities were such that ladies were not even allowed to blow out candles in mixed company, as that required them to pucker their lips suggestively. They could not say that they were going "to bed"--that planted too stimulating an image--but merely that they were "retiring." It became effectively impossible to discuss clothing in even a clinical sense without resort to euphemisms. Trousers became "nether integuments" or simply "inexpressibles" and underwear was "linen." Women could refer among themselves to petticoats or, in hushed tones, stockings, but could mention almost nothing else that brushed bare flesh.
    book-quoteunderwearvictorian-eramodesty

  2. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    {Americans} were, for one thing, so smitten with the idea of progress that they invented things without having any idea whether those things would be of any use.
    book-quoteinventionprogress

  3. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    One consequential change is that people used to get most of their calories at breakfast and midday, with only the evening top-up at suppertime. Now those intakes are almost exactly reversed. Most of us consume the bulk--a sadly appropriate word here--of our calories in the evening and take them to bed with us, a practice that doesn't do any good at all.
    book-quotefoodlunchdinner

  4. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    It is not as if farming brought a great improvement in living standards either. A typical hunter-gatherer enjoyed a more varied diet and consumed more protein and calories than settled people, and took in five times as much viatmin C as the average person today.
    book-quotefarminghealthpaleo

  5. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    Pantaloons were often worn tight as paint and were not a great deal less revealing, particularly as they were worn without underwear. . . . Jackets were tailored with tails in the back, but were cut away in front so that they perfectly framed the groin. It was the first time in history that men's apparel was consciously designed to be more sexy than women's.
    book-quotemodestysex-appeal

  6. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    Nothing - really, absolutely nothing - says more about Victorian Britain and its capacity for brilliance than that the century's most daring and iconic building was entrusted to a gardener.
    book-quotehumor

  7. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    If a potato can produce vitamin C, why can't we? Within the animal kingdom only humans and guinea pigs are unable to synthesize vitamin C in their own bodies. Why us and guinea pigs? No point asking. Nobody knows.
    book-quotetriviasupplementsvitamin-c

  8. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    Columbus's real achievement was managing to cross the ocean successfully in both directions. Though an accomplished enough mariner, he was not terribly good at a great deal else, especially geography, the skill that would seem most vital in an explorer. It would be hard to name any figure in history who has achieved more lasting fame with less competence. He spent large parts of eight years bouncing around Caribbean islands and coastal South America convinced that he was in the heart of the Orient and that Japan and China were at the edge of every sunset. He never worked out that Cuba is an island and never once set foot on, or even suspected the existence of, the landmass to the north that everyone thinks he discovered: the United States.
    book-quotecolumbuscolumbus-day

  9. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    It was an odd situation. For a century and a half, men got rid of their own hair, which was perfectly comfortable, and instead covered their heads with something foreign and uncomfortable. Very often it was actually their own hair made into a wig. People who couldn't afford wigs tried to make their hair look like a wig.
    book-quotehistoryhumorhair

  10. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    ...and it occurred to me, with the forcefulness of a thought experienced in 360 degrees, that that's really what history mostly is: masses of people doing ordinary things.
    book-quotelifeordinary

  11. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    So, if people didn't settle down to take up farming, why then did they embark on this entirely new way of living? We have no idea – or actually, we have lots of ideas, but we don't know if any of them are right. According to Felipe Fernández-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.
    book-quotelifehumorsedentary

  12. Bill Bryson _ At Home: A Short History of

    Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plants thought to exist on Earth, just eleven-corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, cassava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats-account for 93 percent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors.
    book-quote
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