John Hodgman Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Houdini, the magician who debunked magic, could not bear to see the great rationalist [Arthur Conan] Doyle enchanted by ghosts and frauds. And so he did what any friend would: He set out to prove spiritualism false and rob his friend Doyle of the only comforting fiction that was keeping him sane. It was the least he could do.

  John Hodgman

  Comforting, Magic, Fiction

  5 Copy quote

• Stories hold power because they convey the illusion that life has purpose and direction. Where God is absent from the lives of all but the most blessed, the writer, of all people, replaces that ordering principle. Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that, while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.

  John Hodgman

  Pain, Blessed, People

  4 Copy quote

• I have an unfortunate compulsion. I really would rather not do it, as it is very nerve-wracking and un-fun. But when it works, there is nothing like it.

  John Hodgman

  Fun, Nerves, Compulsion

  4 Copy quote

• Borges was unapologetically smart and equally sentimental; a proto-geek, blind to distinctions between low pulp fiction and high criticism, experimental but never arch, and always playful, with a humor as dry as dust.

  John Hodgman

  Smart, Dust, Criticism

  "The Exchange: John Hodgman". Interview with Thessaly La Force, www.newyorker.com. November 11, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• A literary agent is nothing but a cheap salesman (or woman); while a writer is a cheap salesman (or woman) who also has to actually write the books.

  John Hodgman

  Book, Writing, Agents

  "The Exchange: John Hodgman". Interview with Thessaly La Force, www.newyorker.com. November 11, 2008.

  11 Copy quote

• John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald meet in hell and team up to assassinate Satan.

  John Hodgman

  Team, John Wilkes Booth, Satan

  7 Copy quote

• We have all been empowered by the web: everyone with a keyboard can now effectively broadcast to a national audience. In a sense, it puts each of us on the same footing as the major media conglomerates, except for AOL, who now apparently own all our thoughts and teeth.

  John Hodgman

  Media, Teeth, Keyboards

  7 Copy quote

• I believe that by releasing "passing interest/low keepsake-value literature" from the burden of physicality, you are actually releasing the words from their worst liability: the price and inconvenience of actual bookness.

  John Hodgman

  Believe, Literature, Burden

  "The Exchange: John Hodgman". Interview with Thessaly La Force, www.newyorker.com. November 11, 2008.

  5 Copy quote

• You know the old saying: "History is written by the winners. And also, the team of hand-picked historians that the winner keeps hidden away in an underground bunker".

  John Hodgman

  Team, Hands, Winner

  8 Copy quote

• My career as a magazine writer was largely prefaced on the idea of curiosity, to go on adventures and weasel my way into the lives of people that I admire.

  John Hodgman

  Adventure, Careers, Ideas

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  12 Copy quote

• My type of humor is me not caring whether people know what I'm talking about or not.

  John Hodgman

  Caring, Talking, People

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  7 Copy quote

• One of the things about crowd work that's so exciting is when you discover a character in the audience who's interesting or funny, who you can vibe off of. If someone's got a weird job that you can make reference to throughout, or you can bring that person onstage - humiliate them, or celebrate them! You can put people in conversation with one another. The best is when something that they're doing can reflect back on something that you're doing.

  John Hodgman

  Jobs, Character, People

  Interview with Greg Hunter, therumpus.net. October 21, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• Lies are just another kind of storytelling, but with the very distinct and enlivening motive of desperation. Since writers are by nature desperate creatures, they usually do a pretty good (or pretty awful, but always interesting) job of lying.

  John Hodgman

  Jobs, Lying, Interesting

  5 Copy quote

• This is not to say there are not Chicagoans. But I would suggest that they are a nomadic people, whose lost home exists only in their minds, and in the glowing crystal memory cells they all carry in the palms of their hands: a great idea of a second city, lit with life and love, reasonable drink prices at cool bars, and, of course, blocks and blocks of bright and devastating fire.

  John Hodgman

  Memories, Life And Love, Block

  John Hodgman (2012). “The Areas of My Expertise”, p.140, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

• Creating fake facts does require a measure of haphazard research, insofar as they need to not just be possible, but also interesting.

  John Hodgman

  Creating, Interesting, Fake

  "The Exchange: John Hodgman". Interview with Thessaly La Force, www.newyorker.com. November 11, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• I never stopped feeling abject terror until I got on television and went on a national ad campaign and realized, "I will be able to feed my children. I have somehow averted the destiny that awaited me, which is endless, crippling debt forever."

  John Hodgman

  Children, Destiny, Forever

  "Bewildered Maine resident John Hodgman takes another crack at our 11 Questions". Interview with Marah Eakin, www.avclub.com. September 3, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• I do not think that a museum needs to engage with pop culture in order to make itself interesting to museumgoers. Museums are already interesting and engaging with pop culture for its own sake is just a quick way to seem and become dated.

  John Hodgman

  Thinking, Order, Museums

  4 Copy quote

• Life may be miraculous in its unlikelihood in the universe, but it would be a fallacy to suggest that its rareness makes it inextinguishable.

  John Hodgman

  May, Would Be, Fallacy

  4 Copy quote

• A lot of media that that I want to consume, I don't want to have to own forever and ever. It's not like real estate.

  John Hodgman

  Real, Media, Forever

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

• My memories of literary agenting are of a very happy time and there are surprising reminders of it coming back now.

  John Hodgman

  Memories, Happy Times, Coming Back

  "Bewildered Maine resident John Hodgman takes another crack at our 11 Questions". Interview with Marah Eakin, www.avclub.com. September 3, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

• It’s been a tough couple of years for condescending nerds. And if bookstores fall, Jon, America will be inundated with a wandering, snarky underclass of unemployable purveyors of useless and arcane esoterica.

  John Hodgman

  Couple, Fall, Years

  4 Copy quote

• When you think about it, the end of the world is a little bit like death: We all know it's going to come eventually, and as we get older, we feel we see the signs more and more distinctly.

  John Hodgman

  Thinking, World, Littles

  "John Hodgman, part one: the global superpocalypse". Interview with Scott Tobias, tv.avclub.com. November 8, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

• Part of the transaction between writer and reader is the pleasure of building a community and encouraging people to play along.

  John Hodgman

  Play, People, Community

  "Q&A: John Hodgman on perfecting the illusion of expertise". Interview with Adam Rogers, www.wired.com. September 22, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

• First of all, I wish I could grow a beard.

  John Hodgman

  Wish, Beard, Firsts

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  4 Copy quote

• My fame is due to broadcast television.

  John Hodgman

  Television, Fame, Dues

  Interview with Scott Tobias, www.avclub.com. October 21, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

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