Ira Glass Quotes
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When you're working in public radio, you don't have any money to advertise.
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I've actually done events at radio stations where I feel like I've had to give a little talk in behalf of television as a medium.
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Radio is more powerful the closer we mimic the way we actually speak to each other. That's why Howard Stern is such a great radio talent. People on his show are actually speaking to each other. You might not like what they're saying, but they're real conversations.
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I didn't have any particular talent for fiction. I took a class in college.
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When I say something untrue on the air, I mean for it to be transparently untrue. I assume people know when I'm just saying something for effect. Or to be funny.
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At some point, all comics have to go out and be retail salesmen doing door-to-door. And this idea of somebody who totally knows their craft having to get up for free in front of a crowd to work out some stuff they're thinking in their head, still, after as much success as you can get, is really interesting.
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I'll meet listeners who tell me what a great voice I have. But I don't have a great voice for radio. My voice is the utterly normal voice, but sheer repetition has made them think it's OK. Mick Jagger once was asked, 'What makes a hit song? He said, 'Repetition.'
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It took, for me, a long time to develop this idea of what to do on the radio. But from the beginning of my time in radio, I had pretty non-traditional tasks.
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When you're learning, especially to write, unless you're some incredibly gifted writer, a young Malcom Gladwell, say, you need to be imitating people. You need to be imitating how they make their work, how they structure it, how they design the pieces. It gives you chops; it gives you moves.
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I feel like, in general in my work life, my main goal has been to just be in a situation where I'm not bored with my job. That's been the entire principle. Got my wish.
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I have been shocked at the number of people who don't watch television.
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I'm a big Penn & Teller fan. But I myself was never very good; I was a teenage magician who performed at kids' parties. I can still perform a vanish, credibly, and I still, in special circumstances, will make a balloon animal.
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You'd think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space.
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I think the name of the show, 'This American Life' - we named it that just because it seemed like it made the thing feel big. But we don't think about whether it's an American story or not. We happen to be Americans. I think for the stories to work, they have to be universal.
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I feel like dance, by its nature, goes so easily to grand and beautiful.
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I'm a cliche.
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In radio, you have two tools. Sound and silence.
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You get into this situation, performing for T.V., where you have to speak with utter sincerity. It's just like the radio. You have to say it like you mean it, even though the thing you're saying is actually planned out.
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I think one of the reasons that I got so good at it, as somebody making radio stories, is that on the radio I can actually - I can understand what's happening in the interview and can make a connection in a way that makes sense.
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Like most people in radio - and in magic - I'm not cool. I know people who are hip, and I can feel distance between them and me.
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I've read the poker books, but at this point, everybody who's playing has read the poker books. I feel like I'm knowledgeable enough to understand what's going on in the game, and I understand why I suck. And I'm not sure if I'll ever rise beyond that to the level where I don't suck.
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Radio is for driving.
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I was a freelancer all through my 20s and was very slow to get good at what I did.
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I feel like in an interview situation, it's a kind of intimacy that I can understand and handle - versus in real life, when I'm much more of a bumbler and have a hard time.