" What made this particularly interesting is that John Howard is by far the dullest man in Australia. Imagine a very committed funeral home director – someone whose burning ambition from the age of eleven was to be a funeral home director, whose proudest achievement in adulthood was to be elected president of the Queanbeyan and District Funeral Home Directors’ Association – then halve his personality and halve it again, and you have pretty well got John Howard. "

― Bill Bryson , In a Sunburned Country