Chris Hardwick Quotes

When I was growing up, I was as socially outcast as any nerd could possibly be. I was in the chess club, I brought D&D stuff to school, I had every game system you could imagine, I spent countless hours at arcades, computer camp, loud presence in the Latin Club. All that stuff.

If I wasn't acting or doing stand-up, I would be in animation. Or if I had the discipline I might studies physics.

The worst day ever was when I found out my grandfather was going to die.

When you hang around a lot of comedians long enough, you realize there's a certain gene, in every comedian. It's why we get hyper-analytical about things.

I don't know if the podcast as a medium will ever have the cultural impact that TV and movies do. It may never be super-mainstream.

I think being an outcast is what sort of strengthens the nerd movement, because you're isolated, so you have time.

If you can build your career around your passions, then you're winning in life; that's one of the best things you can ask for.

Mainstream culture is like your mom: It's always a little late to catch on and gets easily confused by technology, but it means well.

Comic-Con is interesting because there's so much going on at once, it's literally impossible to do everything. You need clones and some sort of hoverboard so you can surf over the crowd of packed-in nerds.

When you look at your freelance career, it's really like a mall. And if you look at a mall, it's a self-contained system that has a flow and logic to it. You'll probably have one or two really bigger jobs, those are like your anchor stores.

I think for a lot of people, bowling is sort of a joke. But I love it, and it means a lot to me, so any chance to help promote it or celebrate it or not make the hackiest jokes - 'Bowlers are like plumbers and they wear the craziest shirts!' - I'm way into.

You can't throw money at the Internet to make it work - it really is all about the quality of the content.

I do podcasts for the same reasons I do stand-up comedy. I love it, and I don't care if anybody else gets it.

Long ago you may have given up control of your brain and set it on autopilot either because it just felt like too much work. And it is work! But for me, this work was well worth it for the prospect of not waking up sad every day.

If you're looking to freelance, just get as many gigs going as you can, and you can make it work... It's about getting as many side projects as possible, keeping as many balls in the air as you can, and what you're doing, basically, is diversifying your portfolio, with the same kinds of rewards. One falls through, and you still have another one to work on.

Both my parents recognized early on that I wanted to do something in comedy, and they were really supportive. They're the ones who bought me Steve Martin records and let me watch R-rated comedies long before they probably should have.

With stand-up, there's a little bit of an exaggerated reality because things have to be manipulated to create comedy, to create jokes.

Comic-Con is nerd Christmas. People go wanting to have fun.

When I was in grade school I was into chess club, Latin club, D&D, computer camp - everything that made vaginas go away.

Stand-up for me is usually a weekend thing. I go out of town and just do it.

Even before I had an assistant, my calendar was color-coded and I had all these different e-mail rules for how to prioritize e-mails, so I made it a point years ago to figure all that stuff out because my life was a mess.

The difference being that a nerd would wear a D&D shirt because he loves D&D while a hipster would wear a D&D shirt because it's ridiculous that he is wearing a D&D shirt.

You can't touch the strippers. Why are you paying to not touch someone? That is weird. How do you win in that situation? That is like walking into a deli, starving, and being like, 'Here's $300 - can I stare at the roast beef? Better yet, I'll sit down in this chair and you can mash it around my mouth and balls.

No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who's always had everything work out for them with zero struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don't exist.

Worry is a misuse of your imagination.

I think the mistake a lot of people make with new media is they just focus on one thing. But any one thing - just doing podcasts or just having a website or just doing television - isn't enough anymore.

The thing about hipsters is that they take very seriously trying to make themselves look like they don't take themselves seriously.

Sober strip clubs are horrible. When you are sober you see the matrix code behind a strip club. You're paying girls to pretend to like you until you run out of money so they can walk away.

I feel like being nerd is not about the superficial quality; it's about how nerds approach life. It's much more emotional and mental than it is you're some fat guy living in your mom's basement, which I think is just a hacky stereotype.

Any nerd who grew up around the time that I did, BBC programming was a treasure chest for us.

The podcast movement was really a creative survival mechanism for standup comics.

I dated around some, but I've always been a serial monogamist. I don't know how people date around a lot, and not want to stab themselves in the face with a sharp object.

The nerdist movement is less about consumers; there is a large contingent that are creative nerdists instead of consumers.

I made a lot of changes in my life between my twenties and thirties, and it all sort of revolves around how I think people with nerdier brains tend to problem-solve and approach things differently then "norms."

I played tournament chess from fifth grade up into high school.

American television constantly tries to co-op British comedy and create their own version of it. Most of the time it doesn't work; obviously, in the case of 'The Office,' it did. But a lot of times, it doesn't really work.

I learned not to confuse 'busy' with 'productive,' but I'm still far too addicted to email to resist its early-morning digital snuggles.

When I was in school, if you wanted a computer, you had to build one. But today, computers are everywhere. We're all obsessed with technology and having the latest gadgets. Nerd culture is ubiquitous.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it took effort to be a nerd. You had to seek out the nerd stuff.

Alcohol is like pouring smiles on your brain.

I've always had a fondness for that satirical, Terry Gilliam - esque evil corporate megastructure, the kind of business that hangs banners that say making your life better as it throws kittens into the gears.

Steve Martin said that philosophy is good for comedy because it screws up your thinking just enough, and I agree with that. Being forced to see life's metadata is good training for looking for interesting angles on a topic.

I do lots of crowd work in my set, because I enjoy writing material through riffing and conversation.

I've been out of work so many times in my life that relying too much on just one job is terrifying.

Jokes that make me laugh out loud when I write them almost always bomb. I have no idea why.

I've gone from being bullied by jocks as a kid to being bullied by nerds as an adult.

Rats are just Ziploc bags full of disease.

The lifeblood of YouTube is sharing.