There is no metaphor for death. All comparisons are odious, but I'll do one anyway. We all have these moments of harsh clarity where we realize that something is gone, whether that is youth, whether that is someone we care about, whether that is where we literally lose someone we care about to death. Or we end a relationship that we thought would last forever, or have one ended for us. We all have these moments in life where it seems impossible to fill up the time that we have left for us, and yet we have to do it somehow.
John HodgmanLies are just another kind of storytelling, but with the very distinct and enlivening motive of desperation. Since writers are by nature desperate creatures, they usually do a pretty good (or pretty awful, but always interesting) job of lying.
John HodgmanAny time you try to create an Internet meme, automatic fail. That's like the worst thing you can do.
John HodgmanI navigated the world as a hedge maze of constant fear and worry in which I might take the wrong turn and jeopardize the love of everyone around me and everyone on Earth. That's what I needed in order to survive.
John HodgmanI think in American culture, we put value on economic success but tell people you don't have to be economically successful to be happy.
John HodgmanWhen you're a young person, you are biologically driven to believe you are immortal, and that's why you engage in all kinds of risky behavior you stop once you feel death's cruel breath on your neck. I think that as a straight white man in particular, I was tempted to believe that I was immortal and eternal because, after all, in this culture, straight white dudes are the heroes of every story that you see or read about with very rare exception. So how could the story go on without the hero, you know?
John Hodgman