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Part of the transaction between writer and reader is the pleasure of building a community and encouraging people to play along.

John Hodgman

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John Hodgman
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: June 3
Author
Comedian
Film Actor
Podcaster
Presenter
Television Actor
Writer
Brookline
Massachusetts
John Kellogg Hodgman
Play
Encouraging
People
Reader
Along
Writer
Building
Pleasure
Community
Transaction
Part
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More quotes by John Hodgman

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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.
John Hodgman
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We estimate that there are perhaps 20,000 prehistoric hunter-gatherers frozen up in those glaciers. Now, if they simply thaw and wander around, it's not a problem, but if they find a leader - a Captain Caveman, if you will - we'll be facing an even more serious problem.
John Hodgman
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I don't wish to brag, but I'm very intelligent.
John Hodgman
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I know nothing about letting go.
John Hodgman
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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.
John Hodgman
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Life may be miraculous in its unlikelihood in the universe, but it would be a fallacy to suggest that its rareness makes it inextinguishable.
John Hodgman
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You know, I began my life as a creative person writing true things for magazines and telling some very honest, straightforward personal essaying for This American Life, but until someone forces you, with a deadline, to really observe your life - unless you're motivated to do it yourself - there's so many stories that you miss.
John Hodgman
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Houdini, the magician who debunked magic, could not bear to see the great rationalist [Arthur Conan] Doyle enchanted by ghosts and frauds. And so he did what any friend would: He set out to prove spiritualism false and rob his friend Doyle of the only comforting fiction that was keeping him sane. It was the least he could do.
John Hodgman
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Most people presume my mustache is not real because it's much darker than my regular hair.
John Hodgman
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Even the worst job has its benefits and so does being a professional literary agent, and - I know I said this at the time but I still believe it - the worst job is the one that you know is wrong for you, but you still do it. You're afraid to quit.
John Hodgman
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I say, if you're going to eat a creature alive, you have to expect some screaming. That is the carnivore's burden.
John Hodgman
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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.
John Hodgman
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Well, I always had this desire to celebrate and somehow be a part of things that I thought were really great.
John Hodgman
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Writing for me always requires trickery. Tricking myself into sitting down, letting words tumble out until you find the good ones. It's sort of a trance. And when a piece is done, I have little memory of how I wrote it, and zero confidence I'd ever be able to do it again.
John Hodgman
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Terry Gross. I would rush home from high school to listen to Terry Gross.
John Hodgman
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This is one of the defining sorrows of books: that we cannot see one another.
John Hodgman
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When I listen to music - I don't particularly do it for fun all that much. It's not a big part of my life, and I'm not really on top of what's happening in the world of music in the way I was when I was a teenager.
John Hodgman
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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.
John Hodgman
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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.
John Hodgman
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My whole creative career is a product of the Internet. ...I'll take that back. To some degree. My fascination with cultural esoterica and trivia and so on was well-formed long before I got my first AOL account.
John Hodgman