Stories hold power because they convey the illusion that life has purpose and direction. Where God is absent from the lives of all but the most blessed, the writer, of all people, replaces that ordering principle. Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that, while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.
John HodgmanI'm not sure if that answers the question and I have absolutely no problem with any major world religion on Earth.
John HodgmanTo want to become the President is, I think, such a bizarre ambition that it is automatically deranging.
John HodgmanThe reality is that if you want to be in a reality-based community, you've got to respect reality and that means calling it bad when you see the past ahead and it doesn't look good and acknowledging when it's going to work.
John HodgmanI say, if you're going to eat a creature alive, you have to expect some screaming. That is the carnivore's burden.
John HodgmanOnce you're out in a place where there's one sheriff for the county, people have to learn how to get along with each other and that means going to the dump illegally and dumping your garbage and hoping the guys don't call you on it and being terrified of this to your core until you realize after many years that the guys at the dump don't really care where your garbage is coming from.
John Hodgman