Except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between. Sarah Vowell More Quotes by Sarah Vowell More Quotes From Sarah Vowell Most people don't like to talk about violent historical death. Sarah Vowell violent historical people I haven't decided if he deserved to eat bread made out of sticks or live in a rancid puddle, probably because I haven't made up my mind whether anyone deserves such treatment, though I suspect that the day a person gives up on the Geneva Conventions is the day a person gives up on the human race. Sarah Vowell giving-up race mind 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. Sarah Vowell shields speak names I probably am a cranky writer, but I am actually a fairly nice, normal person. Since I'm a grouchy writer, of course I have friends whose books are doing way better than mine. Sarah Vowell nice funny book Even writers need relief from words. Sarah Vowell relief writing needs Listening to the radio every day for an entire year was a prison sentence. It was the most depressing, annoying, debilitating project I have ever undertaken, and I have a master's degree in art history. Sarah Vowell depressing years art I still believe in public radio's potential. Because it's the one mass medium that's still crafted almost entirely by true believers. Sarah Vowell mass radio believe 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. Sarah Vowell girl song kids Clemenza's overriding responsibility is to his family. He takes a moment out of his routine madness to remember that he had promised his wife that he would bring dessert home. His instruction to his partner in crime is an entire moral manifesto in six little words: 'Leave the gun. Take the cannoli. Sarah Vowell gun responsibility home No one I know actually reads what I write, so thank heavens for you strangers. Sarah Vowell stranger writing heaven Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead. Sarah Vowell gone long jesus The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War-when I really think about them they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea. Sarah Vowell sea war thinking I get younger people who watch Conan or The Daily Show, but before that it was mostly people who knew me from public radio. Those people are kind of old. Sarah Vowell radio watches people There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who alphabetize their record collections, and the kind who don't. Sarah Vowell records two people 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. Sarah Vowell noses book children Until that moment, I hadn't realized that I embarked on the project of touring historic sites and monuments having to do with the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley right around the time my country iffily went to war, which is to say right around the time my resentment of the current president cranked up into contempt. Not that I want the current president killed. Like that director, I will, for the record (and for the FBI agent assigned to read this and make sure I mean no harm — hello there), clearly state that while I am obsessed with death, I am against it. Sarah Vowell war mean country 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. Sarah Vowell congratulations success thinking That's what we Americans do when we find a place that's really special. We go there and act exactly like ourselves. And we are a bunch of fun-loving dopes. Sarah Vowell dope special fun Behind every bad law, a deep fear. Sarah Vowell bad-laws behinds law That's what I like to call him, "the current president." I find it difficult to say or type his name, George W. Bush. I like to call him "the current president" because it's a hopeful phrase, implying that his administration is only temporary. Sarah Vowell hopeful political names