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Book: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away
Quotes of Book: I'm a Stranger Here Myself:
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  1. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    For a long time it puzzled me how something so expensive, so leading edge, could be so useless, and then it occurred to me that a computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things. They are, in short, a perfect match."
    book-quotehumor

  2. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    Nobody deserves to go to the World Series more than the Chicago Cubs. But they can't go because that would spoil their custom of never going. It is an irreconcilable paradox.
    book-quotechicago-cubsworld-series

  3. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    Don't ever do anything on principle alone. If you haven't got a better reason for doing something other than the principle of the thing, then don't do it.
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  4. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    I love everything about motels. I can't help myself. I still get excited every time I slip a key into a motel room door and fling it open.
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  5. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By most astounding stroke of luck and infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.For endless eons there was no you. Before you know it, you will cease to be again. And in between you have this wonderful opportunity to see and feel and think and do. Whatever else you do with your life, nothing will remotely compare with the incredible accomplishment of having managed to get yourself born. Congratulations. Well done. You really are special.
    book-quoteinspirationallifeliving

  6. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    In office buildings and retail premises in which entry is through double doors and one of those doors is locked for no reason, the door must bear a large sign saying: "This Door Is Locked for No Reason.
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  7. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    It wasn't until we dropped him at his university dormitory and left him there looking touchingly lost and bewildered amid an assortment of cardboard boxes and suitcases in a spartan room not unlike a prison cell that it really hit home that he was vanishing out of our lives and into his own.
    book-quoteloveparenthoodgrowing-up

  8. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    Confused and unable to help, my hair went into panic mode.
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  9. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    A computer is a stupid machine with the ability to do incredibly smart things, while computer programmers are smart people with the ability to do incredibly stupid things.
    book-quotetechnology

  10. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    On the dashboard of our family car is a shallow indentation about the size of a paperback book. If you are looking for somewhere to put your sunglasses or spare change, it is the obvious place, and it works extremely well, I must say, so long as the car is not actually moving. However, as soon as you put the car in motion ... everything slides off ... It can hold nothing that has not been nailed to it. So I ask you: what then is it for?
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  11. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    So here I am, my affections torn between a postal service that never feeds me but can tackle a challenge and one that gives me free tape and prompt service but won't help me out when I can't remember a street name. The lesson to draw from this, of course, is that when you move from one country to another you have to accept that there are some things that are better and some things worse, and there is nothing you can do about it. That may not be the profoundest of insights to take away from a morning's outing, but I did get a free doughnut as well, so on balance I guess I'm happy.
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  12. Bill Bryson _ I'm a Stranger Here Myself:

    ... it occurred to me that never again would he be seven years, one month and six days old, so we had better catch these moments while we can.
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