John Hodgman Quotes

Most writers write books that they wouldn't read. I ought to know; I've done it myself.

My act has always reflected what's going on in my life.

Why my interest in writers? Well, I'm one, and many of my friends are writers. I know what it's like to write. I'm interested in the creative process. I'm fascinated by the disparity between who we are on the outside, and what we have bubbling away inside us.

I've always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.

I'm still writing from personal experiences, which is what people connected with in the first place.

I would've been able to write anything about mental-health crises had I not felt good.

With "Margaret," I remember clearly it was, you know because I did remember it clearly. I was young. I was young in terms of experience and what did I know about and I had an incredible memory from my own childhood. And so it never occurred to me to write for any other age group. And I thought I'm going to write a book and I'm going to tell the truth.

The book was just something that came along after we played the Super Bowl and I wrote a little essay that went online. Then I had two or three weeks and I said, wow, that essay was pretty good. Maybe I'll try and write some other stuff. Writing about the depression, I just felt - you know, when you write a book like this, you have to open up your life. You have to be willing to do so to a certain degree.

My books are written from personal experience, from memories, and from stories that come to me from all places.

I knew a book of mine was finished when I was in intensive care.

One of the other reasons for writing this book [My Beloved World] was to hold on to the person you first met. More of the world knows about me now and follows me in a way that never happened before. I didn't want me, the inside of me, to change. Because I liked Sonia, the Sonia who has been. So another reason for writing the book was to hold on to that - whatever the best in Sonia was, to try to capture it.

Writing: I certainly do rewrite my central myth in every book, and would never read or trust any writer who did not also do so.

In order to write a book, it is necessary to sit down (or stand up) and write. Therein lies the difficulty.

I realized that if you're trying to reach an audience, being as subjective as possible and really trying to write from something genuine is the way to go. Really it's mostly from my own process, my own experience.

If I found out some gal was trying to steal my guy, I'd want to give her a black eye! Instead, I wrote this song. At the time I was writing each song [on this album], you could figure out the frame of mind I was in by listening closely. With every song I've ever recorded, I'm in it. I wouldn't write about it if I wasn't in it.

Whether it's films or painting or music or writing a book, the greatest experience is being able to express yourself and what you've gone through, trying to figure out a way to make it into something that's artistic that people can connect with.

It is said, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect, it is apt to leave its impression on all his performances.

If I was gonna write a book that was true, and I was gonna write a book that was honest, then I was gonna have to write about myself in very, very negative ways.

Well a good writer writes, a good musician listens to a lot more than he actually composes, and if you're going to do lyrics - well, there's a Freudian slip. That's not even a slip, that's a Freudian move: I said going to do lyrics. If you really want it to ring true, you'll live it first. Go really get your heart broken!

I like the idea that Ernest Hemingway always wrote about certain things he knew, he knew the ins and outs, back to fronts of what he was talking about. I love that as an inspiration for myself, to keep it true to what you know. I'm always writing little lines and saving them for later.

I was suppose to write a book about being a mom, to organize my thoughts into chapters and figure out a structure to hang them on, to make a lasting point, but somehow I decided to go ahead and become a mother instead.

All my work comes out of my life.

I usually don't write about my life right when it happens. I process it, and I store it away. Then, when I get in the mood I pull the stuff back out.

Each book is, in a sense, an argument with myself, and I would write it, whether it is ever published or not.

There's a lot of sub-conscious stuff you may write but you don't then suddenly sit down and take out your analytical books and say: I'm determined to find out where this came from. You'd probably be wrong anyway.