Bill Bryson Quotes

Without geography you're nowhere.

I [had] added another small piece to the pages of the atlas that were real to me.

That’s what a map is, you know. Just a memory.

There must be something innate about maps, about this one specific way of picturing our world and our relation to it, that charms us, calls to us, won’t let us look anywhere else in the room if there’s a map on the wall.

What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else.

Even before you understand them, your brain is drawn to maps.

There's just something hypnotic about maps.

I like geography. I like to know where places are.

For some reason the most devoted mapheads seem to be kids.

If you are in the country, you should notice landmarks - that is, objects which help you to find your way or prevent you getting lost, such as distant hills, church towers, and nearer objects, such as peculiar buildings, trees, gates, rocks, etc.

We were just looking at maps.

I have always preferred maps to books. They don't answer you back.

We're right here on this very spot. Besides, being lost is never a matter of not knowing where you are; it's a matter of not knowing where you aren't - and I don't care at all about where I'm not.

I would stare at maps of Delaware for hours.

Japanese maps tend to come in two varieties: small, schematic, and bewildering; and large, fantastically detailed, and bewildering.

I had the Big Horn river explored from Wind River mountain to my place of embarkation.

Cartography and geographic thinking are cool.

I've always been fascinated and stared at maps for hours as a kid. I've especially been most intrigued by the uninhabited or lonelier places on the planet. Like Greenland, for instance, or just recently flying over Alaska and a chain of icy, mountainous islands, uninhabited.

I now know my right from my left and my up from my down. Unluckily, my terrible sense of direction remains. For me, to live in New York City is to never be able to meet someone on the northeast corner. It is to never ever make a smooth entrance, always to get caught looking lost on the street.

I once knew a girl who didn't know where anywhere was in the world. Not a clue. I asked her if she knew where Africa was and she answered, 'Is it the orange one on a map?'

Nick gets carsick if he's not driving - plus, he's basically a walking atlas. He can drive around any city without a map, which works out fine for me because I just become our entertainment director and pick out which audio book we'll listen to next.

Mapping, both literal and metaphorical, has always been about our quest for knowing.

I have an incredible compass. You can put me back in a country I haven't been in 20 years and say, 'Get me from point A to point B,' and I'll take you there.

The lake was always my orienting point when my dad was teaching me how to not get lost. The lake is east, so you'll always know that. It's a weird thing where you can kind of feel where you're at in Chicago, and when I was downtown, I was like, 'Oh, it feels more open over here. That must be east.' It felt like a little secret thing.

Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each other's errors ... Only a sailor can set them straight.