Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, Robert Lincoln bought a nice ski lodge.

History is full of really good stories. That's the main reason I got into this racket: I want to make the argument that history is interesting.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, Robert Lincoln bought a nice ski lodge.

I was a big Nancy Drew reader. Nancy figures it out. Case closed.

Relics are treasured as something close to the divine.

The whole point of Louis Armstrong is that no one can really figure him out. There was a while where I thought you could try.

My audience is going to die before I do.

Assassins and presidents invite the same basic question: Just who do you think you are?

The one time I was an actor, it happened to be in a globally dominant juggernaut. That was lucky.

We go in to liberate Cuba, but Cuba still isn't free; we don't really think through what we'll do after the initial treaty is signed, but we're still occupying. There's chaos and torture and finally an outcry.

I discovered that Robert Todd Lincoln was there for each of the first three assassinations. I wanted to write about the Lincoln Memorial, so when I found out he had attended its dedication, that helped focus it further.

I loved that these two guys argued with each other as if movies actually mattered. Nobody I knew talked about movies that way, but Siskel and Ebert took each movie as it came and talked about whether it was a success on its own terms.

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

I hated the lost colony; in second grade, we were doing American History, and they said, We don't know what happened to them. That drove me nuts. That lost colony drove me crazy.

I seem to have no problem revealing my crush on the man who murdered Lincoln.

Most people don't like to talk about violent historical death.

One night last summer, all the killers in my head assembled on a stage in Massachusetts to sing show tunes.

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

While I gave up God a long time ago, I never shook the habit of wanting to believe in something. So I replaced my creed of everlasting life with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I didn't come from any kind of academic background, but I lived in a college town and I knew people who weren't without pretense. There was this idea in the town that if something was European it would be good.

I'm a big fan of editing and keeping only the interesting bits in.

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

Part of the success of This American Life, I think, is due to the fact that none of us sound like we should be on the radio. We don't sound professional; we sound like people you would know.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War-when I really think about them they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea.

What are you hiding? No one ever asks that.

I get younger people who watch Conan or The Daily Show, but before that it was mostly people who knew me from public radio. Those people are kind of old.

Not that I want the current president killed. I will, for the record and for the FBI agent assigned to read this and make sure I mean no harm, clearly state that while I am obsessed with death, I am against it.

The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Civil War - when I really think about them, they all seem about as likely as the parting of the Red Sea.

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

I have some close friends I keep in touch with. I knit. I watch a little too much TV. I ski, if the weather's right for that. If I can find a group of buddies, I go rock climbing.

Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, Robert Lincoln bought a nice ski lodge.

Ski racing, especially downhill, is a dangerous activity and there are many accidents. It would be really too bad to lose everything because of a crash.

I remember feeling that technology was like trying to draw with your foot. In a ski boot. It was the most indirect way to work imaginable, but the potential had us all excited. I started in stop motion.

I'd be nervous about skiing, wondering what I'd do if I felt shaky on top of a mountain; but other diabetics do ski, so there's no reason I couldn't.

It's good to ski for fun, but I still want to win races as often as possible.

As the time goes by, you change, your learn new things, your attitude is different. For the moment, I'm still enjoying ski racing so much that it would be difficult for me to think about ending my career.

Switzerland is a place where they don't like to fight, so they get people to do their fighting for them while they ski and eat chocolate.

The best indication is that I still love to ski on most anything, from skating gear to heavy metal.

There is no pressure on me, I can take a lot of risks in the coming weeks. I feel free to ski the way I decide on race-day because the overall title was not my main target this winter.

I don't look at it like that's my rival and I have to beat her. It's more like, I have to ski this as fast as I can and the fastest of everyone out here and that's what I expect.

I donate money to the existing foundation that funds the US Ski Team kids.

In Ski Party we are reading up on how to have fun without sex. That was the theme of every AIP picture!

I was something of a prankster. One time I put a ski mask on my head and used a fake gun on the school secretary so that I could get some of my friends out of detention.

When you back off, it's easier to do mistakes. For me it's better to ski fast.

I think what it takes to succeed remains the same. You have to have a real love of your sport to carry you through all the bad times, you still want to go ski even when things aren't working. You must have a commitment to work hard and to never give up.

We're not necessarily the ski boat, we're the skier. There are countries like Japan and Korea and others who are the ski boat at this point, but we're getting pulled right behind them.

Sometimes I put on a ski mask and dress in old clothes, go out on the streets and beg for quarters.

I just sold a farm in Missouri, and I own a ski lodge in Colorado with some Honolulu partners.

My boyfriend's idea of a lesson was to take me on a black diamond run in the middle of a hail storm and say, 'Go!' Ski patrol had to escort me to another lift to get me down the mountain. No, that wasn't humiliating, not at all.