John Hodgman Quotes

Generally speaking, I think it is fair to say that I am a friend to the creatures of the Earth when I am not busy eating them or wearing them.

There is no ritual that enhances creativity other than just starting.

A stopped clock is correct twice a day, but a sundial can be used to stab someone, even at nighttime.

When you're sitting down and you're blocked and you just start writing and something in your mind just clicks, you start seeing connections and so on, you really do feel like you're channeling something else.

All I can ask from society is that it please stop telling me why I should like sports.

I actually own a copy of my own book; that's how dedicated I am as an author.

You are only pretentious if you are not sincere.

I suspect that when the truth ceases to be heartbreakingly funny, we will be in a better place and a happier society over all.

Reality, while generally probable, is not always interesting.

Here's the thing: I am not only a creature of civilization, I'm an asthmatic person. I will only live so long as I have stockpiled the proper inhalers. I'm effectively a cyborg. You know how in Jurassic Park, they bred those dinosaurs with the lysine deficiencies, so if they ever got off the island, they'd die? That's me.

I don't know if you've ever been shoved into the bow of a nutshell pram, a boat that is very easily almost liftable with one hand, and quite tippy, and is being piloted by a 12-year-old, but it is the true feeling of having your life in someone else's hands, and it's very precarious.

You wouldn't want to live a life in which you are loved or approved by all people on Earth or even within your own geodetic dome full of your jumpsuited followers.

Specificity is the soul of narrative.

Hosting a TV show is a full-time job in which success is defined by it never ending.

I have learned that newborn infants roll their eyes around and move their heads and their arms in short jerky spasms. And if you homeschool them, they will stay this way forever.

Once you're out in a place where there's one sheriff for the county, people have to learn how to get along with each other and that means going to the dump illegally and dumping your garbage and hoping the guys don't call you on it and being terrified of this to your core until you realize after many years that the guys at the dump don't really care where your garbage is coming from.

Comedy does offer an avenue to television and film careers for untelegenic people that great drama does not.

I know nothing about letting go.

If you have not seen it, FOOTBALL is a game in which men shove one another back and forth for no reason. They do not choose how, when, or whom they shove. They are doing this in order to please one angry old man on the sidelines. This old man is called the 'coach' or 'yelling surrogate' dad who will never be happy.

This is something that the nimblest standup comedians learn, over time, to handle gracefully. They'll go between prepared material, then they'll respond to what's happening in the room and weave it back into the prepared material and so on.

For many years, people would say, "Only child? Must have been terrible," and I wanted to say, "You are mentally ill, because it was the greatest." You got all the attention. You never had to share anything. No one ever ate your food. No one ever took your toys. But the unintended consequence was that I didn't appreciate that being universally loved was not only not required for happiness, but also not possible.

My biggest superhero of writing is Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine fabulist. He's an amazingly perceptive writer, but also willing to make a joke.

A lot of my time is spent reading antique or out-of-print books of reference.

My favorite season is autumn, and Maine is lovely for that reason. In Maine, autumn begins on July 29. That's when you start building a fire in the fireplace and the leaves literally start falling from the trees. It is a cold and rugged and a beautiful place that reminds you with its many death traps - its painfully cold oceans, its sharp, jagged beaches, and perilous cliffsides - that nature doesn't care whether you live or die.

I still have a fondness for books. Many a time I will be antiquing, and I'll say, 'What's that old-timey curio over there? What is that, a candlestick telephone, one of those old pull-chain toilets? Oh no, it's a book. I used to help make those things! I will buy it and use it to decorate my chain of casual family-dining restaurants.