From a very selfish point of view, I'm enchanted by the idea that a politician can come along and speak simply and clearly and truthfully to an electorate as though they are grown-ups and to feel the electorate respond to that.

I am a marginally employed person who can escape with my school teacher wife to the waters of Maine for much of the summer.

My career as a magazine writer was largely prefaced on the idea of curiosity, to go on adventures and weasel my way into the lives of people that I admire.

When a good friend gives you his or her book, you don't want to read it, because you're afraid that it's not going be what you hope it can be.

Maine's motto is "Vacationland," but as far as I'm concerned, it should be, "Maine: Putting the 'spite' in hospitality since 1820."

I don't care if I tell that story and John Roderick gets up afterward and yells, 'I hope you enjoyed the white privilege, mortality comedy of John Hodgman!' That's me!" I'm going to play a sad Handsome Family song at the end and I guarantee you everyone is going to love it because, sometimes, you need a grown man or woman to tell you what you like.

All books should be trilogies; I mean I think we all agree on that.