Sarah Vowell quotes

What are you hiding? No one ever asks that. (Sarah Vowell)
Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead. View quote
Sarah Vowell
I discovered that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for each of the first three assassinations. I wanted to write about the Lincoln Memorial, so when I found out he had attended its dedication, that helped focus it further. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot. View quote
Sarah Vowell
History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting. View quote
Sarah Vowell
The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War-when I really think about them they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea. View quote
Sarah Vowell
...Clemenza's overriding responsibility is to his family. He takes a moment out of his routine madness to remember that he had promised his wife that he would bring dessert home. His instruction to his partner in crime is an entire moral manifesto in six little words: 'Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the entire history of the New World. From the Spanish exportation of Aztec cacao, and the Dutch invention of the chemical process for making cocoa, on down to the capitalist empire of Hershey, PA, and the lifestyle marketing of Seattle's Starbucks, the modern mocha is a bittersweet concoction of imperialism, genocide, invention, and consumerism served with whipped cream on top. No wonder it costs so much. View quote
Sarah Vowell
I haven't decided if he deserved to eat bread made out of sticks or live in a rancid puddle, probably because I haven't made up my mind whether anyone deserves such treatment, though I suspect that the day a person gives up on the Geneva Conventions is the day a person gives up on the human race. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Being a nerd, which is to say going too far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to make friends I know. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Buffy's high school was built on top of a vortex of evil, the Hellmouth. And whose wasn't? (Sarah Vowell)
The true American patriot is by definition skeptical of the government. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between. View quote
Sarah Vowell
You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality. View quote
Sarah Vowell
The whole point of Louis Armstrong is that no one can really figure him out. There was a while where I thought you could try. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Not that I want the current president killed. I will, for the record and for the FBI agent assigned to read this and make sure I mean no harm, clearly state that while I am obsessed with death, I am against it. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Relics are treasured as something close to the divine. View quote
Sarah Vowell
I get younger people who watch Conan or The Daily Show, but before that it was mostly people who knew me from public radio. Those people are kind of old. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Part of the success of This American Life, I think, is due to the fact that none of us sound like we should be on the radio. We don't sound professional; we sound like people you would know. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Assassins and presidents invite the same basic question: Just who do you think you are? View quote
Sarah Vowell
Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, Robert Lincoln bought a nice ski lodge. (Sarah Vowell)
I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms. View quote
Sarah Vowell
In death, you get upgraded into a saint no matter how much people hated you in life. View quote
Sarah Vowell
Most people don't like to talk about violent historical death. View quote
Sarah Vowell
My audience is going to die before I do. View quote
Sarah Vowell