John Hodgman Quotes
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The silhouette was named for Etienne de Silhouette, the notoriously stingy finance minister for Louis XV, who ironically was himself incapable of casting a shadow, due to lycanthropy.
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I have a lot of cultural references that have amassed in my brain like shrapnel over the years that are meaningful to me.
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First of all, I wish I could grow a beard.
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I know electric knives are excellent for carving turkeys that have had their bones removed and been forced into a mold to shape them. Please note that those turkeys are called hams.
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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.
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If you look in the dictionary under 'perfectionist,' you see Henry Selick correcting the definition of perfectionist in the dictionary. I mean, he is so meticulous.
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People forget how outcast 'They Might Be Giants' can be. They have a reputation for writing really deft, funny, clever melodies, and they also make a lot of music for kids, which is terrific, but when you see them in concert, they can rock the house.
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Any time you try to create an Internet meme, automatic fail. That's like the worst thing you can do.
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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.
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I'm a personality - like a George Plimpton who effectively plays himself in a bunch of different roles, or a Paul Lynde-type character.
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I am amused by cricket because it seems to take longer than baseball and I like that. It seems like a sport I could have made up it - it takes several days to play and everyone wears sweaters. I can't confess to knowing what's going on at all.
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As a freelance writer, I'd be asked to become an expert for various magazines on any subject, whether food or wine or history or the life span of veterinarians. I was completely unschooled in any of these things.
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I feel that there is a decision people make to either engage in a legitimately ridiculous process to get your kid into school, or choose not to engage in that so much, and end up finding a nice local school that fits.
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Creating fake facts does require a measure of haphazard research, insofar as they need to not just be possible, but also interesting.
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I actually own a copy of my own book; that's how dedicated I am as an author.
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People who run for president seriously and people who become president enter a bizarre secret society in which they have had an experience that none of us will ever have.
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My type of humor is me not caring whether people know what I'm talking about or not.
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The villain of any story is often the most compelling character.
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Not as many people watch 'Doctor Who' as watch the Super Bowl, obviously, but the tropes that attract nerds are no longer a secret cult. It's a much larger culture, in the specific sense.
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More people have more access to more readers for less money than ever before in history. It means a lot of dross; but it means a lot of very talented people can find and nurture a readership in ways that were not possible twenty years ago. From a creative perspective, that is all that writing is about.
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My fame is due to broadcast television.
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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.
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One can always come up with funny lists and jokes. You know what? I take it back. Not everyone can always come up with funny lists and some jokes. I'm very lucky to have a gift where I can do that pretty ably.
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Most people presume my mustache is not real because it's much darker than my regular hair.