Ira Glass Quotes
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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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I started out doing production work on promos, stuff like that. I didn't think it was cool to be working for NPR. I didn't need anything to be cool. I just wanted something to do that would be interesting. It was fun. I didn't think of it as anything else but fun.
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My first job on the radio was writing jokes for a Baltimore DJ called Johnny Walker, who was sort of a '70s era shock jock who all the teenage boys listened to in my school.
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Just when did I get to the point when staying at a hotel wasn't fun?
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The story is a machine for empathy. In contrast to logic or reason, a story is about emotion that gets staged over a sequence of dramatic moments, so you empathize with the characters without really thinking about it too much. It is a really powerful tool for imagining yourself in other people's situations.
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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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Any story that I can consider worth telling is one that you could tell in words.
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Honestly, I am so ignorant of how dance works that I can't even imagine a story that you would want to tell through movement.
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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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Traditional broadcast media seems old-fashioned and vague to me. When I watch television news, I'm aware of what skilled journalists they are, but I find it hard because of the corny way they present it.
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I think stories get better the more people try to amuse themselves.
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In some theoretical way I know that a half-million people hear the show. But in a day-to-day way, there's not much evidence of it.
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When I was a bad writer, I would consciously imitate other NPR writers who I thought were wonderful. I suppose that everyone's artistic practice is different. But I collaborate and sometimes don't agree at all with my collaborators' opinions. It forces you to understand why you don't agree with something: what's the fight you're picking.
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If you want somebody to tell you a story, one of the most easiest and effective ways is if you're telling them a story.
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When I started 'This American Life', one of the reactions I got was, 'When is the adult going to show up who will host the show?' At some point, people just got used to it.
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I'm not a go-in-for-the-kill kind of interviewer. It's a great thing to me, that kind of interviewer, but I'm not it. It doesn't play to my strengths at all. I like to interview people who are interested in telling their story and tell it as truthfully as they can.
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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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Not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.
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The flakier your mission, the fiercer you have to be on the business side.