When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a girl called Bobbi and get a job in the Firestone fac… - Bill Bryson

Most of the time I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment, the amazing complex delicacy of the words, the casual ease with which elemental things come together to form a composition that is — whatever the season, wherever I put my besotted gaze — perfect.

They [the American authorities] can't actually believe that anyone would want to not be an American," he says. "It's not enough to send them a letter and tell them you've become British; you've got to go to the embassy to formally renounce your US citizenship. I'm a little worried that when I do this they'll pack me off to Guantanamo.

I don't care how paranoid and irrational this makes me sound, but I know for a fact that the people of Paris want me dead.