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 VowellJesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead.
Sarah VowellIn the U.S.A., we want to sing along with the chorus and ignore the verses, ignore the blues. . . No one is going to hold up a cigarette lighter in a stadium to the tune of "mourn together, suffer together." City on a hill, though -- that has a backbeat we can dance to. And that's why the citizens of the United States not only elected and reelected Ronald Reagan; that's why we ARE Ronald Reagan.
Sarah VowellOne night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes.
Sarah VowellThere are people who look forward to spending their sunset years in the sunshine; it is my own retirement dream to await my death indoors, dragging strangers up dusty staircases while coughing up one of the most thrilling phrases in the English language: 'It was on this spotโฆ' My fantasy is to one day become a docent.
Sarah Vowell