Sarah Vowell People Quotations

In death, you get upgraded into a saint no matter how much people hated you in life.

Most people don't like to talk about violent historical death.

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.

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.

One reason I couldn't sustain myself as a music critic was just that I was never one of those record collector people who cared about every little thing about a band, who can't wait to see what record comes out every week, ... For me, it was always more obsessive. I could listen to the same Jonathan Richman song over and over again. I came at it as a fan, but not a 'follow the beat' kind of fan. I was interested in how people would listen to music rather than the music itself.

The basic reaction from students is relief that they're made to read something that isn't totally dull, uppity or dreary, ... They think my writing is vaguely entertaining, which I guess a lot of their homework isn't. As Ira says, when people say This American Life is the 'coolest show on public radio' is like being called the 'coolest Osmond.' It doesn't mean that much when you're the most entertaining homework.

There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who alphabetize their record collections, and the kind who don't.

The only people who know about me are people who would know about me.