Quotes from book
Assassination Vacation

Assassination Vacation
Sarah Vowell

Assassination Vacation is a book by Sarah Vowell, published in 2005, in which she travels around the United States researching the assassinations of U.S. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield and William McKinley. While most of the book is devoted to facts about the assassinated presidents and the men who would murder them, Vowell intersperses anecdotes of her self-proclaimed "pilgrimage" of presidential assassinations, including a production of the musical Assassins.

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“Robert Todd Lincoln, a. k. a. Jinxy McDeath.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell photo

“Like Lincoln, I would like to believe the ballot is stronger than the bullet. Then again, he said that before he got shot.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation

Sarah Vowell photo

“That's what I like to call him, "the current president." I find it difficult to say or type his name, George W. Bush. I like to call him "the current president" because it's a hopeful phrase, implying that his administration is only temporary.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation

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“You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 144

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“Except for the people who were there that one day they discovered the polio vaccine, being part of history is rarely a good idea. History is one war after another with a bunch of murders and natural disasters in between.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 208

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“I understand why other people would want to stay in B&Bs. They're pretty. They're personal. They're “quaint,” a polite way of saying “no TV.” They are “romantic,” i. e., every object large enough for a flower to be printed on it is going to have a flower printed on it. They're “cozy,” meaning that a guest has to keep her belongings on the floor because every conceivable flat surface is covered in knickknacks, except for the one knickknack she longs for, a remote control.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 2

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“Going to Ford's Theatre to watch the play is like going to Hooters for the food.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 21

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“Nowadays, ever since the attack on the Pentagon in 2001, the capital has been clamped down. How is this manifested? Giant planters blocking government buildings, giant planters barricading every other street. Theoretically, the concrete flowerpots are solid enough to fend off a truck bomb. And yet the effect is ridiculous, as if we believe we can protect ourselves from suicide bombers by hiding behind blooming pots of marigolds, flowers whose main defensive property is repelling rabbits.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), pp. 23-24

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“I fear that the consumer who buys a Confederate flag coffee cup, which she will then put on her American flag place mat, is the sort of sophisticated thinker who is open-minded enough that she is capable of hating blacks and Arabs at the same time.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 88

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“I haven't decided if he deserved to eat bread made out of sticks or live in a rancid puddle, probably because I haven't made up my mind whether anyone deserves such treatment, though I suspect that the day a person gives up on the Geneva Conventions is the day a person gives up on the human race.”

Sarah Vowell book Assassination Vacation

Source: Assassination Vacation (2005), p. 81 On Samuel Mudd

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