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Sarah Vowell Quotes

Has our enslavement to dopamine—to the instant hits of validation that come with a well-crafted tweet or Snapchat streak—made us happier? I suspect it has simply made us less unhappy, or rather less a...

Sarah Vowell

Has our enslavement to dopamine—to the instant hits of validation that come with a well-crafted tweet or Snapchat streak—made us happier? I suspect it has simply made us less unhappy, or rather less a...

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 m...

Sarah Vowell

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 m...

Tags: america, american culture, american dream, gatsby, on the road, sarah vowell

About Author
Sarah Jane Vowell (born December 27, 1969) is an American historian, author, journalist, essayist, social commentator and actress. She has written seven nonfiction books on American history and culture. Vowell was a contributing editor for the radio program This American Life on Public Radio International from 1996 to 2008, where she produced numerous commentaries and documentaries. She was also the voice of Violet Parr in the 2004 animated film The Incredibles and its 2018 sequel.

Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship. So when my friends Joel and Stephen and I play hooky from our jobs in the middle...

Sarah Vowell

Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship. So when my friends Joel and Stephen and I play hooky from our jobs in the middle...

Tags: citizenship, goofing off, humor, patriotism, procrastination

The English Puritans were obsessed with the idea of providence, and that word is more ominous to them than it sounds to us. It means care, but it also means control. It does not just mean that God wil...

Sarah Vowell

The English Puritans were obsessed with the idea of providence, and that word is more ominous to them than it sounds to us. It means care, but it also means control. It does not just mean that God wil...

Tags: authoritarianism, calvinism, providence

Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the ent...

Sarah Vowell

Just the other day, I was in my neighborhood Starbucks, waiting for the post office to open. I was enjoying a chocolatey cafe mocha when it occurred to me that to drink a mocha is to gulp down the ent...

Tags: chocolate, coffee, history

If I'm still wistful about On the Road, I look on the rest of the Kerouac oeuvre--the poems, the poems!--in horror. Read Satori in Paris lately? But if I had never read Jack Kerouac's horrendous poems...

Sarah Vowell

If I'm still wistful about On the Road, I look on the rest of the Kerouac oeuvre--the poems, the poems!--in horror. Read Satori in Paris lately? But if I had never read Jack Kerouac's horrendous poems...

Tags: kerouac, poetry, writing

We all grew up, those of us who took to heart. We came to cringe a little at our old favorite poet, concluding that God was likely never Pooh Bear, that sometimes New York and California could be jus...

Sarah Vowell

We all grew up, those of us who took to heart. We came to cringe a little at our old favorite poet, concluding that God was likely never Pooh Bear, that sometimes New York and California could be jus...

Tags: kerouac, modernism, on the road

The whole reason I wanted to take Owen to Disney World is that I fear that someday he's going to look through his childhood photo album and wonder why all his vacations with his aunt took place at pla...

Sarah Vowell

The whole reason I wanted to take Owen to Disney World is that I fear that someday he's going to look through his childhood photo album and wonder why all his vacations with his aunt took place at pla...

Tags: history, sightseeing, vacations

Parliament would abolish slavery in the British Empire in 1833, thirty years before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. A return to the British fold in 1778 might have freed American slaves...

Sarah Vowell

Parliament would abolish slavery in the British Empire in 1833, thirty years before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. A return to the British fold in 1778 might have freed American slaves...

Tags: frederick douglass

I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn't have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all th...

Sarah Vowell

I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didn't have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all th...

Tags: nerd, nerdiness, nerds, opinion, patriotic, patriotism, politics, politics of the united states

The air has that bracing autumnal bite so that all you want to do is bob for apples or hang a witch or something.

Sarah Vowell

The air has that bracing autumnal bite so that all you want to do is bob for apples or hang a witch or something.

Tags: fall, new england

No one recorded what those marches were, though decades later there was an apocryphal and later-debunked story the one of the songs the British played was the on-the-nose The World Turned Upside Down.

Sarah Vowell

No one recorded what those marches were, though decades later there was an apocryphal and later-debunked story the one of the songs the British played was the on-the-nose The World Turned Upside Down.

Tags: american revolution, hamilton

I waited in vain for someone like me to stand up and say that the only thing those of us who don't believe in god have to believe is in other people and that New York City is the best place there ever...

Sarah Vowell

I waited in vain for someone like me to stand up and say that the only thing those of us who don't believe in god have to believe is in other people and that New York City is the best place there ever...

Tags: city, new york city, urban life

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, sometime...

Sarah Vowell

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, sometime...

Tags: pilgrims, puritans, roman catholicism

Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship. So when my friends Joel and Stephen and I play hooky from our jobs in the middle...

Sarah Vowell

Along with voting, jury duty, and paying taxes, goofing off is one of the central obligations of American citizenship. So when my friends Joel and Stephen and I play hooky from our jobs in the middle...

Tags: goofing off, humor, patriotism, procrastination

While technically Maryland remained in the Union during the Civil War, it was the border state, a schizophrenic no-man’s-land with the North at its door and the South in its heart.

Sarah Vowell

While technically Maryland remained in the Union during the Civil War, it was the border state, a schizophrenic no-man’s-land with the North at its door and the South in its heart.

After Hymns and tears, they boarded the brig Thaddeus, a vessel so crappy, it made the Mayflower look like the QE2.

Sarah Vowell

After Hymns and tears, they boarded the brig Thaddeus, a vessel so crappy, it made the Mayflower look like the QE2.

Tags: mayflower, missionary, thaddeus

Owen is the most Hitchcockian preschooler I ever met. He's three. He knows maybe ninety word and one of them is 'crypt'?

Sarah Vowell

Owen is the most Hitchcockian preschooler I ever met. He's three. He knows maybe ninety word and one of them is 'crypt'?

Tags: macabre

Because of the city upon a hill sound bite, is one of the formative documents outlining the idea of America. But dig deep into its communitarian ethos and it reads more like an America that might hav...

Sarah Vowell

Because of the city upon a hill sound bite, is one of the formative documents outlining the idea of America. But dig deep into its communitarian ethos and it reads more like an America that might hav...

Tags: america, canada, city on the hill, communitarianism, john winthrop

Um, I asked, isn't the whole point about being a slave that you don't have a choice to be anything else? Prettying up the word slave with the adjective-noun constructions makes enslaved African sound...

Sarah Vowell

Um, I asked, isn't the whole point about being a slave that you don't have a choice to be anything else? Prettying up the word slave with the adjective-noun constructions makes enslaved African sound...