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Lafayette in the Somewhat United States QUOTES

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States QUOTES

1 " Wainwright prayed to the graven image of Lafayette, since neither the president nor Congress seemed to be listening. “We, the women of the United States,” she told the bronze Lafayette, “denied the liberty which you helped to gain, and for which we have asked in vain for sixty years, turn to you to plead for us. Speak, Lafayette, dead these hundred years but still living in the hearts of the American people. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

2 " In the United States, there was no simpler, more agreeable time. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

3 " You know your country has a checkered past when you find yourself sitting around pondering the humanitarian upside of sticking with the British Empire. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

4 " But there’s still this combination of governmental ineptitude, shortsightedness, stinginess, corruption, and neglect that affected the Continentals before, during, and after Valley Forge that twenty-first-century Americans are not entirely unfamiliar with. While "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

5 " Oh, if only that was the last time in America that the extreme left and extreme right broke down and made a mess of things, leaving everyone in the center to suffer. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

6 " That, to me, is the quintessential experience of living in the United States: constantly worrying whether or not the country is about to fall apart. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

7 " While the melodrama of hucking crates of tea into Boston Harbor continues to inspire civic-minded hotheads to this day, it’s worth remembering the hordes of stoic colonial women who simply swore off tea and steeped basil leaves in boiling water to make the same point. What’s more valiant: littering from a wharf or years of doing chores and looking after children from dawn to dark without caffeine? "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

8 " Considering Independence Hall was also where the founders calculated that a slave equals three-fifths of a person and cooked up an electoral college that lets Florida and Ohio pick our presidents, making an adolescent who barely spoke English a major general at the age I got hired to run the cash register at a Portland pizza joint was not the worst decision ever made there. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

9 " Freedom of expression truly exists only when a society’s most repugnant nitwits are allowed to spew their nonsense in public. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

10 " The scene of Washington cussing out Charles Lee was for some reason not included in the series of bronze illustrations of the Battle of Monmouth on the monument at the county courthouse. Even though it was the most New Jersey–like behavior in the battle, if not the entire war. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

11 " To Arendt’s point about post-revolution stability deriving from pre-revolutionary experience in self government, it’s worth remembering that two of Henry’s less chatty fellow burgesses became the first and third presidents of the United States. Andrew O’Shaughnessy, referring to the masterminds of the 2013 government shutdown and no doubt alluding to the freshman senator who was its ringleader, told me, “Experience is terribly important. You’ll notice that the congressmen who want to hold up the government are all junior people and new to the game. And of course they will say, ‘Oh, it’s Washington cynicism, where they all compromise and work out backroom deals.’ But that’s actually how democracy works.” Which is exactly how government operations resumed on October 17, 2013: a bipartisan group of old-school senators with the combined age of Stonehenge started hashing out a bargain drafted by third-term moderate Republican Susan Collins of Maine, who, prior to her election sixteen years earlier, had spent twelve years working behind the scenes as a legislative aide to her predecessor. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

12 " I did not hesitate to be disagreeable to preserve my independence. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

13 " I do not think that there can ever be enough books about anything; and I say that knowing that some of them are going to be about Pilates. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

14 " The newly dubbed General Lafayette was only nineteen years old. Considering Independence Hall was also where the founders calculated that a slave equals three-fifths of a person and cooked up an electoral college that lets Florida and Ohio pick our presidents, making an adolescent who barely spoke English a major general at the age I got hired to run the cash register at a Portland pizza joint was not the worst decision ever made there. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

15 " After Dickinson and Adams had it out over the Olive Branch Petition, Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, that he and Dickinson “are not to be on speaking terms.” How sad is it that this tiff sort of cheers me up? If two of the most distinguished, dedicated, and thoughtful public servants in the history of this republic could not find a way to agree to disagree, how can we expect the current crop of congressional blockheads to get along? "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

16 " While history might be full of exemplary fathers, recorded history is not where to find them. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

17 " Steuben explained to his friend, “You say to your soldier, ‘Do this,’ and he does it; but I am obliged to say, ‘This is the reason why you ought to do that,’ and then he does it. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

18 " When Lafayette met him in 1775, the first volume of Raynal’s 1770 History of the Two Indies had already been banned, which is to say it was a popular success, the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books being the unofficial bestseller list of the day. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

19 " It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights,” Washington wrote. “For, happily, the Government of the United States . . . gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

20 " I’ve encountered my fair share of war reenactors over the years, but I’ve never seen a reenactment of this banal predicament: a tired woman in a dark house answering a child who is supposed to be asleep that she has no idea when Daddy’s coming home. "

― Sarah Vowell , Lafayette in the Somewhat United States