266 Quotes by Sarah Vowell

Once or twice a day, I am enveloped inside what I like to call the Impenetrable Shield of Melancholy. This shield, it is impenetrable. Hence the name. I cannot speak. And while I can feel myself freeze up, I can’t do anything about it.

You know you’ve reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.

I see plainly that America can defend herself if proper measures are taken,” he wrote, adding ominously, “and now I begin to fear she should be lost by herself and her own sons.” The.

In his reply, Washington acknowledged his fellow Americans’ “fatal tendency of disunion.” The.

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.

I like that the Mall serves as our national Tuppaware, reliable and empty, waiting to be filled with potluck whatever.

In other words, every cent the French government spent on guns for the Americans was another centime it would not have to spend on butter for the starving peasants who would one day storm Versailles.

As the starstruck Lafayette later described his first glimpse of Washington, “It was impossible to mistake for a moment his majestic figure and deportment; nor was he less distinguished by the noble affability of his manner.” What a sweet memory. Still, it does get on my nerves how easy it is for tall people to make a good first impression.

Abraham Lincoln had a soft spot for deserters, whom he called his “legs cases.” Though many of his military commanders grumbled about Lincoln’s leniency – traditionally, runaways were shot – the president preferred incarceration to execution, asking, “If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs how can he help their running away with him?