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.

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.

We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.

I'm not really the scented envelope kid of girl, preferring instead to send yellow Jiffy-lite mailers packed with whatever song is on my mind.

I'm always disappointed when I see the word 'Puritan' tossed around as shorthand for a bunch of generic, boring, stupid, judgmental killjoys. Because to me, they are very specific, fascinating, sometimes brilliant, judgmental killjoys who rarely agreed on anything except that Catholics are going to Hell.

What are you hiding? No one ever asks that.

Behind every bad law, a deep fear.