The one time I was an actor, it happened to be in a globally dominant juggernaut. That was lucky. – 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. – 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. – 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. – Sarah Vowell
One night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes. – Sarah Vowell
Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead. – Sarah Vowell
While I gave up God a long time ago, I never shook the habit of wanting to believe in something. So I replaced my creed of everlasting life with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. – 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. – 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. – 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. – Sarah Vowell
We go in to liberate Cuba, but Cuba still isn’t free; we don’t really think through what we’ll do after the initial treaty is signed, but we’re still occupying. There’s chaos and torture and finally an outcry. – Sarah Vowell
I hated the lost colony; in second grade, we were doing American History, and they said, We don’t know what happened to them. That drove me nuts. That lost colony drove me crazy. – Sarah Vowell
Assassins and presidents invite the same basic question: Just who do you think you are? – 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. – Sarah Vowell
I didn’t come from any kind of academic background, but I lived in a college town and I knew people who weren’t without pretense. There was this idea in the town that if something was European it would be good. – 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. – 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. – Sarah Vowell
