Sarah Vowell Quotes

I don't care what the political establishment says, Republican, Democrat - I'm a problem solver.

You talk about leading Republicans. That's no easy task on just like you were trying to lead Democrats on the other side. We all have independent thoughts and independent ideas.

It takes guts in this country to refuse to be a Democrat or a Republican.

My job isn't to represent the Democrat Party or the Republican Party. It's to represent Hoosier families.

You can't go out and adopt Democrat policies all the way or halfway to show that you're not what they think you are.

But I'm hopeful some of that will start to change. The public is more libertarian, the public is saying we want people who are going to be independent and not bow to leadership in either of the major parties.

[Is the Conservative Party still the Nasty Party?] I said it was perceived as the Nasty Party. And is it? I don't think that it's a phrase that people today would apply to the Party. I think that the perception of the Party has changed.

Government shutdowns do not actually become what the term implies. Two-thirds of the government cannot shut down. We're only talking about the third of government that's discretionary spending, and even at that, nobody loses their jobs, and nobody loses their Thanksgiving turkey. The whole thing has resulted from the Republican Party thinking they bought the farm back in 1995.

There could be an independent labor-based party, which might over time become an important force the way the Labor Party did in England. To all of these things there are plenty of barriers, in the culture and in the social and political institutions, the concentration of economic power. But these are not insuperable barriers, I think. They can be overcome. And it is urgent that this be done, because there are really incredible problems that are simply not being addressed.

[Donald] Trump, I think, understands it. He has said this is going to be a new Republican Party, a workers' Republican Party, instead of just the elite Republican Party.

I think we have got to call out the Republicans, where their walk doesn't match their talk, and I think we also have to make sure that we communicate clearly that we are the party that cares deeply in our core about working people in this country.

I think is interesting is that term is so pejorative or understood to be so pejorative and there's a real difference between how Republicans, it seems to me, think of that and how Democrats do. I don't think Democrats feel as negatively about the Democratic Party establishment as Republicans do feel about their party's establishment.

I think politics in general are just like a popularity contest but McCain is just... old.

If you look back at the 1960's in the United States, and if you think that more good was done than harm, you are probably a Democrat. If you think that more harm was done than good, then you're probably a Republican.

He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

I think I did have a reputation for being grumpy. I don't think I'm grumpy. I have opinions. I have an independent vision. I am a purposeful person. But on a daily basis, I think I'm other than grumpy. I think it is a case where I am coming to do business and not there just to be flattered and cajoled and used.

I don't think the Republican Party is against women.

We [he and his wife Trish Van Devere] don't talk politics. I'm an independent conservative; she's a radical Democrat. We never vote together.

I think it is important that we go and bring both of the parties together. The more we go to the left, the more we go to the right, I believe of what President Eisenhower said, "Politics is like the road. The left and the right represents the gutter, and the middle is drivable."

A democrat must be utterly selfless. He must think and dream not in terms of self or of party, but only of democracy.

I really believe that Donald Trump is so polarizing even within the Republican Party that he will fail to have a majority if he is, in fact, our nominee. I think he will be shredded by the Democrats based on the opposition research that's there.

As an independent, my views, in fact, are a little bit different than many of my Democratic colleagues.

I think the White House is filled with confrontation, and is doing things to continue it. The White House and congressional Democrats think that they have the upper hand. They look at the surveys, they look at the polls, they think the Republicans are going to get blamed.

The Democrats have always been known as the party that's negative and look at everything wrong.

I would just say 2016 is a year when voters have to think for themselves and shouldn't necessarily take it from the Rs and the Ds in Washington. But you have to vote for me because otherwise the other guy might win. That's not really very substantive.