Sarah Vowell Quotes

There is a great overlap of tragedy that played out through the generations of the Lincolns. That, coupled with the idea that many people consider Lincoln our greatest president ever and the fact that he was also a man assassinated at the age of 56 and had a widow with mental problems is what makes it all so fascinating.

I walked out of Spielberg's 'Lincoln' having such a thirst for more. It used such a microscopic albeit enormous event in American history. It used such a small piece of his presidency to illustrate him as a president through the lens of that event.

... dizzy with the elevation to which the assassination [of Lincoln] has raised him.

I will make a prophecy that may now sound peculiar. In fifty years Lincoln's name will be inscribed close to Washington's on this Republic's roll of honor.

Today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. President Lincoln wrote it on his way to the site of the speech on the back of an envelope. One guy on the back of an envelope wrote the great Gettysburg Address - while every night it takes six guys to write this crap!

The glory that was Lincoln's never died when he was slain.

I think also there's no question that Lincoln has been diluted down through history in some way, almost by becoming as iconic as he is, in a way he's become diluted.

I was right about one of the most significant issues in modern American history. I was the only one who was right about one of the most significant issues in modern American history.

My memoirs were written, and a portion of them already in the hands of the publishers, when the startling news came which has thrilled all Europe and filled her inhabitants with horror - the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.

What makes the Lincoln Memorial so powerful is that it doesn't try to do too much. In effect, it says that he saved the Union.

Let's assume for the moment that the logic behind Presidents Day is actually sound for certain presidents. Why not have a separate holiday for Lincoln and one for Washington - as we used to do, before we became so concerned with the 'Every President Gets a Trophy' ethos?

There is no disputing that Lincoln was a great man.

The arc of American history almost inevitably moves toward freedom. Whether it's Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation, the expansion of women's rights or, now, gay rights, I think there is an almost-inevitable march toward greater civil liberties.

The Lincoln Memorial is related to the toga and the civilization that wore it.

Until Eleanor Roosevelt, there was only one or two First Ladies in all of American history who made an impact, who people could even have recognized or identified. And it's really only been since Jackie Kennedy that there's been this idea that the family life of the president is such a central thing.

If you go with me on this one, 200 years from now, school will only remember the names of two great Republicans, Lincoln and Dirkson.

Glorious News. Lincoln and Seward Assassinated! Andy Johnson Inaugurated President.

Lincoln's address at Gettysburg - 272 words dedicating a cemetery at the site of one of the Civil War's bloodiest battles - has been called by scholars the source of all modern political prose.

Speaking as a writer, it would be difficult to find an event in American history more dramatic and riveting than the Civil War.

Words about Lincoln fill a small but ever-growing library.

When you're driving into D.C. as a young kid and you go over the Key Bridge and see the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, and Capitol Building, they become a part of the landscape for you. You are also constantly in contact with this idea that history, and the people that made it, are being remembered.

Lincoln is distinguished from every other president, with the exception of Jefferson, in that we can be certain that he wrote every word to which his name is attached.

I read anything that’s going to be interesting. But you don’t know what it is until you’ve read it. Somewhere in a book on the history of false teeth there’ll be the making of a novel.

Lincoln is such an iconic figure in American history. He seems to reflect so many elements of American culture that we consider essential, whether it's the self-made man, the frontier hero, the politician who tries to act in a moral way as well as in a political way, Honest Abe. His career raises these questions that are still with us, the power of the federal government vis-à-vis the states, the question of race in American life, can we be a society of equals? There are so many issues central to Lincoln's career that are still part of our society one hundred and fifty years later.

There's no one who I believe has ever captured the soul of America more profoundly than Abraham Lincoln has.