Monday, August 4, 2014

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson, r. Aug. 2014

p. ix Growing up was easy. It required no though or effort on my part. It was going to happen anyway. So what follows isn't terribly eventful, I'm afraid. And yet it was by a very large margin the most fearful, thrilling, interesting, instructive, eye-popping, lustful, eager, troubled, untroubled, confused, serene, and unnerving time of my life.

p. 29 So this is a book about being small and getting larger slowly. One of the great myths of life is that childhood passes quickly. In fact, because time moves more slowly in Kid World - five times more slowly in a classroom on a hot afternoon, eight times more slowly on any car journey of more than five miles (rising to eighty-six times more slowly when driving across Nebraska or Pennsylvania lengthwise), and so slowly during the last week before birthdays, Christmases, and summer vacations as to be functionally immeasurable - it goes on for decades when measured in adult terms. It is adult life that is over in a twinkling.

No comments:

Post a Comment