Bill Bryson Quotes

I was born a year after Lindbergh made his historic trip across the Atlantic. Boys like either dinosaurs or airplanes. I was very much an airplane boy.

I've been a Yankees fan for a long time. When I was a kid in the mid-'70s, the Yankees were really great. They had Reggie Jackson in '77. I was 8 years old at the time. He hit three home runs to win the World Series in game six against the Dodgers, and I was just hooked.

Who was the first person to fly across the Atlantic? Lindbergh. Who was the second? No idea.

Something I'll always remember - when I was a kid, I shook hands with Orville Wright. Forty years later, I shook hands with Neil Armstrong. The guy that invented the airplane and the guy that walked on the moon. In a lifetime, that's kinda wild when you think about it.

To this day, with all of these muscle-bound guys, nobody hit the ball further than Mickey Mantle, with his natural strength.

Since 1869, baseball has been doing pretty well.

My generation remembered going to the movies as an event. We would see these things, we would bring them home, and we would think about them for years because it would take a long time before they would go on television where you could re-experience the fun that you had when you watched them.

At a book festival in Fort Lauderdale, I met David Eisenhower, Ike's grandson, who was promoting his book 'Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower,' in which he describes attending the Yankees' 154th game in 1961. The whole family had been following Mantle and Maris chase Babe Ruth's home run record across the country.

Certain guys, they can see a guy do a certain thing with their glove and know what pitch is coming. I couldn't do that. But I can get on first base and I can tell you by his move if that pitcher is going to first base or home plate every time.

After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.

I haven't gone home with anybody who tried to pick me up in a long time.

I liked Jackie Robinson because he was cool to watch, not because he was black. Every time you turned around, he was hitting a triple or making a great play in the field or, best of all, stealing home.

The thing about living without a father if he's always gone is that it takes a long time to realize he isn't coming home.

I was born in Peru, and we moved to Scotland when I was 15, but I've not lived here for a long time. But I would always say that I am Scottish, and Scotland is as close to a home as I have.

I am a gypsy. I havent' had a home for a long time. Call me a homeless person - I just throw everything in a bag and I'm good to go.

Next to religion, baseball has had a greater impact on the American people than any other institution.

Although baseball actually began as a game played largely by urban toughs, its image was soon reconstructed to mirror the country's pastoral myth.

Statues of sports stars are all the rage - especially in baseball.

In baseball 30 days is an eternity.

All America is familiar with the Yankee-Dodger-Giant trivia, but so many other teams had great moments.

When I played Little League, I looked up to the big leaguers, too, and collected their baseball cards.

The guy's (Shane Spencer) ridiculous. No one hits home runs like that. I'm telling you, man, it's ridiculous.

To be the first player to do it three consecutive years (fifty or more home runs), you go back through the thousands of power hitters who played this game and nobody has ever done it, and I can sit here and say I'm the first. I'm pretty proud of that.

I never thought home runs were all that exciting. I still think the triple is the most exciting thing in baseball. To me, a triple is like a guy taking the ball on his 1-yard line and running 99 yards for a touchdown.

Some of the longest home runs I've hit, I didn't actually realize they were going that far. Everyone says, 'What does it feel like to hit the ball that far?' Actually, there's no feeling at all. I know when the ball meets the bat whether or not it's left the park. It's a nice easy thing.