Sarah Vowell Quotes

In the United States, there was no simpler, more agreeable time.

The whole reason I wanted to take Owen to Disney World is that I fear that someday he's going to loo...

You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your la...

The whole reason I wanted to take Owen to Disney World is that I fear that someday he's going to loo...

History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.

A gifted violin player in danger of becoming a virtuoso and thus too attached to his instrument hand...

That's what I like to call him, "the current president." I find it difficult to say or type his name...

Back inside, I’m shown an antique cabinet in which members of the community, famous for their homegr...

Wainwright prayed to the graven image of Lafayette, since neither the president nor Congress seemed ...

You know your country has a checkered past when you find yourself sitting around pondering the human...

...there's nothing more depressing than bad capitalism.

All those adorable towheaded kids in the promotional film are going to turn thirteen. Once a family ...

The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief.

--a man without birth, without courage, without conduct. For my part, I declare, sir, it shall never...

Heaven, such as it is, is right here on earth. Behold: my revelation: I stand at the door in the mor...

We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid...

It's such a hopeful, almost utopian word, that word "phase." As if any minute, "we" would suffer som...

If this fails to convince, I being out my secret weapon, announcing with portentous deliberation tha...

If I'm still wistful about On the Road, I look on the rest of the Kerouac oeuvre--the poems, the poe...

I waited in vain for someone like me to stand up and say that the only thing those of us who don't b...

I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know...

The more history I learn, the more the world fills up with stories.

We were breathing sooty air. The soot was composed of incinerated glass and steel but also, we knew,...

The irony of informing nearly naked people in a wilderness setting about the story of naked Adam and...

The groundswell of outrage over the invasion of Iraq often cited the preemptive war as a betrayal of...

I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I'd go...

...the air has that bracing autumnal bite so that all you want to do is bob for apples or hang a wit...

By journey's end the brides were much better acquainted with their grooms and more or less pleased w...

Acts 16:9 is the meddler's motto, simultaneously selfless and self-serving, generous but stuck-up. I...

After Hiram Bingham built the first church on Oahu the student recalls, "When it was completed some ...

For Americans, Acts 16:9 is the high-fructose corn syrup of Bible verses--an all-purpose ingredient ...

Robert Todd Lincoln, a.k.a. Jinxy McDeath.

Still, compared to him, compared to the people we descend from, I am free of history. I'm so free of...

The thing that drew me to Lafayette as a subject - that he was that rare object of agreement in the ...

The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don't mean thought-provok...

History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to mak...

That year, a middle-aged acquaintance asked me what my favorite book was and I said "On the Road." H...

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War - when I really think about them, t...

Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of Ame...

In Woody Allen movies people stood in line for Ingmar Bergman films or Holocaust documentaries talki...

Once, headed uptown on the 9 train, I noticed a sign posted by the Metropolitan Transit Authority ad...

But I can no longer ready any faith's Napoleonic saber rattling without picturing smoking rubble on ...

I do not think that there can ever be enough books about anything; and I say that knowing that some ...

But before we cue the brass section to blare "The Stars and Stripes Forever," it might be worth taki...

Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was e...