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Book: The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America
Quotes of Book: The Lost Continent: Travels in
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  1. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    {Traveling} makes you realize what an immeasurably nice place much of America could be if only people possessed the same instinct for preservation as they do in Europe. You would think the millions of people who come to Williamsburg every year would say to each other, "Gosh, Bobbi, this place is beautiful. Let's go home to Smellville and plant lots of trees and preserve all the fine old buildings." But in fact that never occurs to them. They just go back and build more parking lots and Pizza Huts.
    book-quotetravelhistoric-preservation

  2. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    In this he was like most Midwesterners. Directions are very important to them. They have an innate need to be oriented, even in their anecdotes. Any story related by a Midwesterner will wander off at some point into a thicket of interior monologue along the lines of "We were staying at a hotel that was eight blocks northeast of the state capital building. Come to think of it, it was northwest. And I think it was probably more like nine blocks. And this woman without any clothes on, naked as the day she was born except for a coonskin cap, came running at us from the southwest... or was it the southeast?" If there are two Midwesterns present and they both witnessed the incident, you can just about write off the anecdote because they will spend the rest of the afternoon arguing points of the compass and will never get back to the original story. You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing on a traffic island in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a windblown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.
    book-quotemidwesterners

  3. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    In the morning I awoke early and experienced that sinking sensation that overcomes you when you first open your eyes and realize that instead of a normal day ahead of you, with its scatterings of simple gratifications, you are going to have a day without even the tiniest of pleasures; you are going to drive across Ohio.
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  4. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    And before long there will be no more milk in bottles delivered to the doorstep or sleepy rural pubs, and the countryside will be mostly shopping centers and theme parks. Forgive me. I don't mean to get upset. But you are taking my world away from me, piece by little piece, and sometimes it just pisses me off. Sorry.
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  5. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead.
    book-quotehumorold-people

  6. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    Still, I never really mind bad service in a restaurant. It makes me feel better about not leaving a tip.
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  7. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    I became quietly seized with that nostalgia that overcomes you when you have reached the middle of your life and your father has recently died and it dawns on you that when he went he took some of you with him.
    book-quoteparentsmiddle-agenostalgia

  8. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    I was heading to Nebraska. Now there's a sentence you don't want to say too often if you can possibly help it.
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  9. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?
    book-quotehumor

  10. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    And there you have the difference between the Midwest and the West, ladies and gentlemen. People in the Midwest are nice.
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  11. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    I drove on into Des Moines and it looked very large and handsome in the afternoon sunshine. The golden dome of the state capitol building gleamed. Every yard was dark with trees. People were out cutting the grass or riding bikes. I could see why strangers came in off the interstate looking for hamburgers and gasoline and stayed forever. There was just something about it that looked friendly and decent and nice. I could live here, I thought, and turned the car for home. It was the strangest thing, but for the first time in a long time I almost felt serene. Index The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created.
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  12. Bill Bryson _ The Lost Continent: Travels in

    was headed for Nebraska. Now there's a sentence you don't want to have to say too often if you can possibly help it. Nebraska must be the most unexciting of all the states. Compared with it, Iowa is paradise. Iowa at least is fertile and green and has a hill. Nebraska is like a 75,000-square-mile bare patch.
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