John Hodgman Quotes

Hillary Clinton, our junior senator from New York, announced that she has no intentions of ever, ever running for office of the President of the United States. Her husband, Bill Clinton, is bitterly disappointed. He is crushed. There go his dreams of becoming a two-impeachment family.

I would rather have written Fables in Slang than be President.

If you ask me, I'd like to become the first female president. That would be really cool. The first thing I would do is redecorate the White House, it doesn't look very cozy.

Many people wants to be the president...they have ambition. Just ambition is not enough.

I don't think I would be a good politician. I kid about it when I get a standing ovation. Sometimes I'll say, "I may run for Governor," but it's strictly a joke.

It's so funny that people think I actually ran for President. I am maybe the most un-political person you're ever going to meet. When I put "Elected" out, it was definitely a satire... "Alice Cooper for President"... when everybody realized I was running against Nixon, you known, even on a joke level, I think I got a lot of write-in votes.

I think there's one more thing Perry can forget, too: Being president.

I must be wanting to be President. Every young man does. But I won't let myself think of it; I must not, because if I do, I will begin to work for it; I'll be careful, calculating, cautious in word and act, and so - I'll beat myself.

Ever since I was a young man, I wanted to run for the presidency in the worst possible way - and I did.

You don't run for the presidency out of nostalgia.

I'm thinking my next book should be set on a tropical island, which will obviously require days, even weeks of meticulous research, but I'm prepared to make that sacrifice. That's just the sort of dedicated writer I am.

People who know Paul Ryan say, 'He will be president one day.'

I had a unique circumstance in which my career was associated with George W. Bush, who went straight to the top. I went to work for him in October of 1993. So my whole identity in national politics is associated with this president, and you know, I kind of want to leave it that way. It's not tugging at me to go do the '08 cycle.

I do not rule out the possibility of being prime minister of India one day, but there is still time.

Mo Udall didn't want the presidency bad enough. He was too sane. He was a marvelous guy, but you had the feeling there was another Udall outside his body watching the candidate Udall who was too extravagant, telling him to cut it out.

In America, any boy can grow up to become president. Or, if he never grows up, vice president.

Only very intelligent people don't wish they were in politics, and I'm dumb enough to want to be in there.

Ike is bitten with the presidential bug and is also yellow. He has convinced himself that he did me a favor by getting me out of the really grave risks of being a governor. He will never be president!…

The general impression of course is that you would be most foolish to take the Vice Presidency .... if I were a candidate for the Presidency, I would take the Vice Presidency in a minute at this juncture. My belief in your taking it arises from my conviction that it is the true stepping-stone for you .... The Vice Presidency is the better path to better and more important things.

Mothers may still want their sons to grow up to become President, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

You are the only man in history to every use the Presidency as a stepping stone to greatness.

If you do get into the Senate, don't get the Presidential mania. It makes mad every man who is at all prominent at Washington either in the House or Senate. Scores of men, usually sound and sensible, fancy they can be President, who has no more right to think so than the autocrat of Russia. I have no knowledge of any tolerably conspicuous politician at Washington whose career is not colored and marred by his ambition to be President. I say this in all seriousness. It makes fools of all sorts from [Daniel] Webster and Lewis Campbell.

It was flattering to have high expectations, but I was never going to be President.

In economics, 'competitiveness' does not describe Barack Obama's insistence on not only being president of the U.S. but also beating his staff at bowling.

I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person, and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.