Andrew’s Reviews > Lafayette in the Somewhat United States > Status Update

Two quotes about George Washington: "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world." - George III, upon hearing that Washington intended to retire to his farm after the war; "They wanted me to be another Washington." - Napoleon Bonaparte, reflecting on his rule from exile in Elba.

More bile for the Chateau de Versailles: "...the woefully bedazzled ceilings of a grotesque hunting lodge gone wrong."

"You say to your soldier, 'Do this,' and he does it; but I am obliged to say, 'This is the reason why you ought to do that,' and THEN he does it." Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben on training the Continental Army

Reading about the Revolutionary War is a great way to learn the significance of NYC and DC street and subway station names.

"I do not think that there can ever be enough books about anything; and I say that knowing that some of them are going to be about Pilates." Vowell reacts to a Quaker's opinion that there are too many books about military history.

"Still, it does get on my nerves how easy it is for tall people to make a good first impression." Vowell on complimentary accounts of George Washington

"This is the derivation of that old Yankee proverb that if you can sell a book, you can move sixty tons of weaponry three hundred miles in winter."

"The rustic gloom of Chateau de Chavaniac is a Woody Guthrie song compared to the Liberace concert that is the Chateau de Versailles." - Vowell continues to hate on Versailles

"the morally and architecturally bankrupt compendium of gilded nonsense and silken flimflam" Vowell describes the palace of Versailles, her "least favorite building on earth."