“Folklore used to be passed by word of mouth, from one generation to th...” — Jill Lepore Quote

Folklore used to be passed by word of mouth, from one generation to the next; that's what makes it folklore, as opposed to, say, history, which is written down and stored in an archive.

Nineteenth-century grass-roots populism made twentieth-century progressivism possible.

An ordinary life used to look something like this: born into a growing family, you help rear your siblings, have the first of your own half-dozen or even dozen children soon after you're grown, and die before your youngest has left home.

As a matter of historical analysis, the relationship between secrecy and privacy can be stated in an axiom: the defense of privacy follows, and never precedes, the emergence of new technologies for the exposure of secrets.

I have a better internal and intuitive understanding of folklore and myth than science and technology, so in that way fantasy is easier.

Read the folklore masters. Go to galleries. Walk in the woods. That's what you need to be an artist or storyteller.

In more recent years, I've become more and more fascinated with the indigenous folklore of this land, Native American folklore, and also Hispanic folklore now that I live in the Southwest.

History written by the victims trickles down in the form of folklore.

I just love rolling up my sleeves and doing research, and I especially love doing research on the origins of folklore and the origins of mythology.