266 Quotes by Sarah Vowell

Before the verb “to electrocute” came to define death by electricity, Edison advocated that the verb be named for his nemesis, that a person who had been electrocuted would have been westinghoused instead. I bet Westinghouse came up with some possible definitions of what it meant to be edisoned himself.

In Woody Allen movies people stood in line for Ingmar Bergman films or Holocaust documentaries talking up media theory to pass the time. At 16 that was my idea of fun. Now that I live in New York I can tell you that people lined up for tickets don’t debate theory. They talk about cute guys at the gym or whether or not they live within walking distance of a Krispy Kreme. I was such a young fogy that growing up involved becoming less mature.

Winthrop and his shipmates and their children and their children’s children just wrote their own books and pretty much kept their noses in them up until the day God created the Red Sox.

That, to me, is the quintessential experience of living in the United States: constantly worrying whether or not the country is about to fall apart.

If two of the most distinguished, dedicated, and thoughtful public servants in the history of this republic could not find a way to agree to disagree, how can we expect the current crop of congressional blockheads to get along?

Lafayette lifted his glass at one reception to toast ‘the perpetual union of the United States,’ adding, ‘it has always saved us in time of storm; one day it will save the world.’” Whether.

I suspect that the day a person gives up on the Geneva Convention is the day a person gives up on the human race.

The fact that a child that age was allowed to go out looking for the four-legged serial killer that the king has dispatched his personal gun-bearer to track down speaks of an older, hands-off parenting style.

That year, a middle-aged acquaintance asked me what my favorite book was and I said “On the Road.” He smiled, said, “That was my favorite book at sixteen.” At the time, I thought he was patronizing me, that it was going to be my favorite book forever and ever, amen. But he was right. As an adult, I’m more of a Gatsby girl-more tragic, more sad, just as interested in what America costs as what it has to offer.