Quotes By Author: 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, I never would have had the guts to write horrendous poems myself. I never would have signed up for Mrs. Safford’s poetry class the spring of junior year, which led me to poetry readings, which introduced me to bad red wine, and after that it’s all just one big blurry condemned path to journalism and San Francisco.”

“The only thing more dangerous than an idea is a belief. And by dangerous I don’t mean thought-provoking. I mean: might get people killed.”

“I guess if I had to pick a spiritual figurehead to possess the deed to the entirety of Earth, I’d go with Buddha, but only because he wouldn’t want it.”

“After Hiram Bingham built the first church on Oahu the student recalls, “When it was completed some of the natives said among themselves, ‘That house of worship built by the haoles is a place in which they will pray us all to death. It is meant to kill us.”

“We are flawed creatures, all of us. Some of us think that means we should fix our flaws. But get rid of my flaws and there would be no one left.”