Kayla > Kayla's Quotes

“A stopped clock is correct twice a day, but a sundial can be used to stab someone, even at nighttime.”
― John Hodgman, More Information Than You Require

“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 Hodgman

“Generally speaking, I think it is fair to say that I am a friend to the creatures of the Earth when I am not busy eating them or wearing them.”
― John Hodgman

“...normally I consider nostalgia to be a toxic impulse. It is the twinned, yearning delusion that (a) the past was better (it wasn´t) and (b) it can be recaptured (it can´t) that leads at best to bad art, movie versions of old TV shows, and sad dads watching Fox news. At worst it leads to revisionist, extremist politics, fundamentalist terrorism, and the victory-in Appalachia in particular-of a narcissist Manhattan cartoon maybe-millionaire and cramped-up city creep who, if he ever did go up to Rocky Top in real life, would never come down again.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“That which is hard to do is best done bitterly.”
― John Hodgman, More Information Than You Require

“There are transitions in life whether we want them or not. You get older. You lose jobs and loves and people. The story of your life may change dramatically, tragically, or so quietly you don´t even notice. It´s never any fun, but it can´t be avoided. Sometimes you just have to walk into the cold dark water of the unfamiliar and suffer for a while. You have to go slow, breathe, don´t stop, get your head under, and then wait. And soon you get used to it. Soon the pain is gone and you have forgotten it because you are swimming, way out here where it´s hard and where you were scared to go, swimming sleekly through the new.”
― John Hodgman

“If you have not seen it, FOOTBALL is a game in which men shove one another back and forth for no reason. They do not choose how, when, or whom they shove. All that has been decided for them in advance. All they need to do is follow the orders given to them before the game, showing them where to run and how to violently deploy the meat of their bodies against the meat that is running at them. They are doing this in order to please one angry old man on the sidelines. This old man is called the "coach" or "yelling surrogate dad who will never be happy.”
― John Hodgman, That is All

“As I’ve mentioned, I am an only child. This makes me a member of the worldwide super-smart-afraid-of-conflict narcissist club. And let me emphasize: afraid of conflict. Since I had no siblings to routinely challenge/hit me and equally no interest in playing sports, I had grown up without any experience in conflict. I therefore had no reason to imagine that confrontation of any kind, ranging from fighting to kissing, was not probably fatal.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“Manly deeds, womanly hands.”
― John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise: An Almanac of Complete World Knowledge Compiled with Instructive Annotation and Arranged in Useful Order

“Life may be miraculous in its unlikelihood in the universe, but it would be a fallacy to suggest that its rareness makes it inextinguishable.”
― John Hodgman, That is All

“There are transitions in life whether we want them or not. You get older. You lose jobs and loves and people. The story of your life may change dramatically, tragically, or so quietly you don’t even notice. It’s never any fun, but it can’t be avoided. Sometimes you just have to walk into the cold dark water of the unfamiliar and suffer for a while. You have to go slow, breathe, don’t stop, get your head under, and then wait. And soon you get used to it. Soon the pain is gone and you have forgotten it because you are swimming, way out here where it’s hard and where you were scared to go, swimming sleekly through the new.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“Raccoons are beyond fear, and they are assholes.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“There are many joys of parenting, but ultimately we are robots training our own upgrades to replace us.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“Every evening my wife makes us martinis and we talk about our days as I cook dinner and our children ignore us. It is a great pleasure in our lives: this rediscovering of each other as our children age. It is our indulgence.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“Even as a grown-up, I love pretending to be a grown-up.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“I cannot remember whether this was my decision or her command. Maintaining such fogginess about free will is, I think, a secret to a lasting marriage.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“You should always pay full price for a haircut, but if you have the chance to buy discount therapy you should grab it, because the markup on that shit is insane.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“After all, there's no mansplaining like white mansplaining 'cause white mansplaining don't stop.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“She taught me that the world would continue without me. And eventually I learned that lesson. It took some time...Everything is cliche. Her death taught me that life is short.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“Now normally I consider nostalgia to be a toxic impulse. It is the twinned, yearning delusion that (a) the past was better (it wasn’t) and (b) it can be recaptured (it can’t) that leads at best to bad art, movie versions of old TV shows, and sad dads watching Fox News. At worst it leads to revisionist, extremist politics, fundamentalist terrorism, and the victory—in Appalachia in particular—of a narcissist Manhattan cartoon maybe-millionaire”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches

“The Sky Lounge is not aspirational. It is desperational.”
― John Hodgman, Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms

“It takes a long time for white guys to appreciate that they are breakable. They do not live from birth with the daily fear that they might be attacked or detained or killed. Their bodies are not constant targets of power. Their bodies are power, so they throw those bodies up and down mountains and stairs and out of airplanes and into pointless online yelling matches for fun. They just presume they will survive.”
― John Hodgman, Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms

“Whatever you may have thought about Hillary Clinton, my daughter watched as a highly experienced and qualified woman lost a job to a neophyte dilettante cartoon character of a white man who openly bragged of molesting women. My daughter isn’t dumb. She got the message.”
― John Hodgman, Medallion Status: True Stories from Secret Rooms

“As a father now myself, it's sobering to think about how the smallest comments will ripple through your children's lives, with some leaving permanent warps. I must console myself in the certainty that I am helping them and damaging them in other ways I cannot see.”
― John Hodgman, Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches