But I got a great deal else from the experience. I learned to pitch a tent and sleep beneath the stars. For a brief, proud period I was slender and fit. I gained a profound respect for the wilderness and nature and the benign dark power of woods. I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the world. I found patience and fortitude that I didn't know I had. I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists. I made a friend. I came home.
(A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail )
More Quotes from Bill Bryson:
I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this all at once, every moment, on the trail or off.Bill Bryson
Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old.
Bill Bryson
Physics is really nothing more than a search for ultimate simplicity, but so far all we have is a kind of elegant messiness.
Bill Bryson
Consider the Lichen. Lichens are just about the hardiest visible organisms on Earth, but the least ambitious.
Bill Bryson
There seemed to be a mystifying universal conspiracy among textbook authors to make certain the material they dealt with never strayed too near the realm of the mildly interesting and was always at least a long-distance phone cacll from the frankly interesting.
Bill Bryson
Geologists are never at a loss for paperweights.
Bill Bryson
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