Cokie Roberts > Quotes

“When kids made a decision for themselves they have a vested interest in showing they were right. Lee wanted to prove to me that he had made the right choice so he worked hard and did well. If we'd forced him to go to college somewhere else all the incentives would've been different. Then he would have had a motive to prove that we were wrong.”
― Cokie Roberts Steve Roberts, From This Day Forward: A Wise and Endearing Memoir on Marriage, Family, and Faith

“As long as algebra is taught in school, there will be prayer in school.”
― Cokie Roberts

“The truth is, the notion that gay marriage is harmful to marriage, is sort of mind-boggling, because these are people trying to get married. But it seems to me, if you want to defend marriage against something, defend it against divorce.”
― Cokie Roberts

“John Quincy Adams subscribed to the thesis that his mother's generation was unique when he complained to [his wife] that there were no modern women like her. Abigail, God love her, shot back that women might act frivolous and flighty, but only because men wanted them to.”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

“Cornwallis voiced his lament that even if he destroyed all the men in America, he’d still have the women to contend with.”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers

“The Fifth Congress had recessed in July 1798 without declaring war against France, but in the last days before adjourning it did approve other measures championed by Abigail Adams that aided in the undoing of her husband—the Alien and Sedition Acts. Worried about French agents in their midst, the lawmakers passed punitive measures changing the rules for naturalized citizenship and making it legal for the U.S. to round up and detain as “alien enemies” any men over the age of fourteen from an enemy nation after a declaration of war. Abigail heartily approved. But it was the Sedition Act that she especially cheered. It imposed fines and imprisonment for any person who “shall write, print, utter, or publish…any false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States” with the intent to defame them. Finally! The hated press would be punished. To Abigail’s way of thinking, the law was long overdue. (Of course she was ready to use the press when it served her purposes, regularly sending information to relatives and asking them to get it published in friendly gazettes.) Back in April she had predicted to her sister Mary that the journalists “will provoke measures that will silence them e’er long.” Abigail kept up her drumbeat against newspapers in letter after letter, grumbling, “Nothing will have an effect until Congress pass a Sedition Bill, which I presume they will do before they rise.” Congress could not act fast enough for the First Lady: “I wish the laws of our country were competent to punish the stirrer up of sedition, the writer and printer of base and unfounded calumny.” She accused Congress of “dilly dallying” about the Alien Acts as well. If she had had her way, every newspaperman who criticized her husband would be thrown in jail, so when the Alien and Sedition Acts were passed and signed, Abigail still wasn’t satisfied. Grumping that they “were shaved and pared to almost nothing,” she told John Quincy that “weak as they are” they were still better than nothing. They would prove to be a great deal worse than nothing for John Adams’s political future, but the damage was done. Congress went home. So did Abigail and John Adams.”
― Cokie Roberts, Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation – A Beautiful Biography About Extraordinary Reformers and Visionaries for Kids

“At night the envoys received visits of a less savory sort. Three henchmen of Talleyrand’s came around regularly to demand payment in exchange for recognizing the U.S. diplomats. The foreign minister’s agents, characterized in the communications to Philadelphia as X, Y, and Z, laid out the terms: an American loan of ten million dollars to the French government plus a quarter million dollars for Talleyrand’s personal pocket. The envoys angrily rejected the demand, with Pinckney famously replying, “No! No! Not a sixpence.” In the retelling, Pinckney’s refusal evolved into the more American aphorism “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.”
― Cokie Roberts, Ladies of Liberty: The Women Who Shaped Our Nation – A Beautiful Biography About Extraordinary Reformers and Visionaries for Kids

“Harty Choak Pie Translation: Artichoke pie. This old English recipe comes from an old recipe book in Martha Washington’s family. The coffin used, lest you become alarmed, was a pastry-lined dish or pan shaped like a (you guessed it!) coffin. The verges mentioned is verjuice or green juice—any sour juice of a green fruit used in place of vinegar. Grape juice was commonly used this way. Artichokes Sugar Pastry Verges (green juice) Butter Cinnamon Marrow bones Ginger Take 12 harty choak [artichoke] bottoms, good and large and boil them. Discard the leaves and core, and place the bottoms on a coffin of pastry, with 1 pound butter and the marrow of 2 bones in big pieces, then close up the coffin, and bake it in the oven. Meanwhile, boil together ½ pound sugar, ½ pint verges, and a touch of cinnamon and ginger. When the pie is half-baked, put the liquor into it, replace it in the oven until it is fully baked.”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers

“Benjamin Franklin had another suggestion for the vice president: “His Superfluous Excellency.”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers

“confab in his visit to the President yesterday after”
― Cokie Roberts, Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868 – A Riveting American History of Political Empowerment, Independence, and Service

“Nelly still seemed somewhat untamed. Eliza Powel once told her, "You look as if your clothes were thrown on with a pitchfork!”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation

“Though she hadn’t seen other countries, she was convinced that America was the best because of the equality of its people, “there being none so immensely rich as to lord it over us, neither any so abjectly poor as to suffer for the necessaries of life.”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers

“Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers

“Times do keep changing - thank God.”
― Cokie Roberts

“May our Country be always prepared for War, but disposed to Peace”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mothers

“He simply trusted Abigail to handle everything without masculine oversight, and she did.”
― Cokie Roberts, Founding Mother: The Women Who Raised Our Nation