Sarah Vowell

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

Relics are treasured as something close to the divine.

Jesus and Lincoln, Moses and Jefferson can seem so long gone, so unbelievable, so dead.

The participation of the people in their own government was the more significant, because the colonies actually had what England only seemed to have, - three departments of government.

Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

Barack Obama is crazy sexy.