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.

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

Specificity is the soul of narrative.

I am not beautiful, so I don't know why I'm making myself ugly. But the mustache stays.

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.

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

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.

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.

The villain of any story is often the most compelling character.

I say, if you're going to eat a creature alive, you have to expect some screaming. That is the carnivore's burden.

I would definitely make eggs for the rest of my life if I could.

Just a small-scale cult of personality, maybe raise a geodetic dome out in western Massachusetts and make people wear jumpsuits and give all their possessions to me.

I don't really collect anything. I mean, if I see a piece of Moxie soda memorabilia, I'll probably buy it. I'm a sucker for regional soda brands and forgotten histories and that sort of thing.

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".

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

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

Do not listen to the killjoys who tell you never to eat oysters in months that do not contain the letter R: May, June, July, August, Octoba. You know.

I am not a villain.I'm an only-child narcissist monster, but I wish no ill, nor do I wish for world domination; what a hassle that would be!

I would say aside from Moxie soda bottles and Masonic artifacts, there's nothing I really collect.

Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies.

Just because you see an iceberg does not mean that there isn't global warming.

This is one of the defining sorrows of books: that we cannot see one another.

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.

I made an impulse buy of a house in Maine to make my wife happy and now have gone back into debt and it's all started over for me.

Reality, while generally probable, is not always interesting.

The fact is I'm very self-similar.

You are only pretentious if you are not sincere.

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.

For a long time, I would write without music, because I thought it was distracting until I appreciated that it actually unlocks a certain unconscious productivity vault in my mind.

What would I put in a museum? Probably a museum! That's an amusing relic of our past.

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

So I am a product of the Internet, and to some degree a product of this sensibility of constant cultural reference.

Unfortunately for humanity, I've gotten into the habit of providing my own closing music for shows by singing a song and playing the ukulele.

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

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

I am not an Internet superstar.

Americans don't need a metaphor for war. We have war. If anything, we use war as a metaphor for sports.

I think in American culture, we put value on economic success but tell people you don't have to be economically successful to be happy.

It seems that every generation needs its public, tweedy, literary personality to sell its consumer electronics. To whatever degree I can live up to the Plimptonian legacy, I am humble and proud.

I am someone who values truth - actual truth as opposed to 'truthiness.'

Generally speaking, I, like anyone else who does anything publicly, like it when people like what I do, and would like to hear as much.

I have a lot of cultural references that have amassed in my brain like shrapnel over the years that are meaningful to me.

Everyone wants to write a book. Very few people are able to do it.

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

It would be rather naive to imagine that Oprah doesn't have an Earth Evacuation Plan. You know Richard Branson does - his is in plain sight.

Most people presume my mustache is not real because it's much darker than my regular hair.

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.

As you know, the thing that I know the least about is the topic of sports.

That which is hard to do is best done bitterly.