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I Would Be Good For Maybe Not The Center Square But An Upper Square On 'hollywood Squares.'
-John Hodgman
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I Would Be Good

John Hodgman
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I Would Be Good For Maybe Not The Center Square But An Upper Square On 'hollywood Squares.'

Understanding the Quote: "i would be good for maybe not the center square but an..."

This quote by John Hodgman reflects deeply on the theme of squares. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Squares, Would Be, Hollywood, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how John Hodgman interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About John Hodgman

John Hodgman is celebrated for insightful thoughts on squares and would be. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Squares
Would Be
Hollywood
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That Catharsis Is Really The Core Of The Incredibly Personal Comedy Of Louis C.k. Or Marc Maron Or Whatever. And Look - I Find It Fascinating That I'm Sitting Here Talking About Some Of These Things, And Not To Low Tones, And My Kids Are In The Other Room. I Have To Trust That If They Hear What I'm Saying And They Have Questions About It, I'll Be Able To Answer It, And That's Fine. But That's Part Of The Scariness Of It - The Reality Of Opening Up My Own Life And My Own Feelings.
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Thinking
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Writing
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Cult Of Personality
Domes
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Earth
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World
Earth
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Smart
Dust
Criticism
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.
Book
Good Friend
Giving
I've Made My Evolutionary Purpose And Had Children. I Don't Care If Anybody Likes Me, I'm Going To Do What I Want To Do. I'm Going To Do A Whole Comedy Show About Swimming In The Loathsomely Cold Waters Of Maine.
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Swimming
Water
I Am Not An Internet Superstar. I Am, Ironically Perhaps, The Most Old Media Superstar Of All Time. My Fame Is Due To Broadcast Television.
Media
Television
Superstar
A Lot Of Media That That I Want To Consume, I Don't Want To Have To Own Forever And Ever. It's Not Like Real Estate.
Real
Media
Forever
Comedy Does Offer An Avenue To Television And Film Careers For Untelegenic People That Great Drama Does Not.
Drama
Careers
People
I Had The Pleasure Of Listening To Rickie Lee Jones' Flying Cowboys Album On Audio Cassette, Which Had Just Come Out At That Time Because I Am An Elderly Man.
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Men
Elderly
As A Live Stand-up Comedy Performer, I Have The Benefit Of Choosing Real Entrance Music.
Real
Benefits
Comedy
By The Time I Was Writing The Second Book, My Life Had Changed Rather Dramatically, Thanks To The Intervention Of Television, And I Needed To Find A Way To Discuss That. Otherwise The Big, Fake Book Would Not Be True On Some Level.
Book
Writing
Fake
Terry Gross Has Never Had Me On Her Show And You Know, It's Her Show; She Sets The Agenda And That's Not Hodgman. But I'll Still Listen To It.
Agendas
Gross
Shows
I Say, If You're Going To Eat A Creature Alive, You Have To Expect Some Screaming. That Is The Carnivore's Burden.
Alive
Burden
Carnivores
I Think That I'm Reaching A Point In My Life And In My Career Where Soon It Will Be Important For Me To Get Out Of The Way And Let Younger, Hungrier, More Interesting People Do What It Is That I Do. Maine Is A Wonderful Place To Hide, Because No One Ever Looks For You There. And The Goal Of Every Person In Maine, Whether Native Or From Away, Seems To Be To Mitigate As Possible All Human Interaction. So It's A Good Place To Disappear In.
Thinking
People
Goal
The Reality Is That There Is An Enormous Value To Gut-check Instinctive Decision-making In The World That Is Not Hampered By Reams And Reams Of Research And Complexity.
Reality
Decision
Research
I Don't Watch Television. And Certainly Not Ads; I Loathe Advertising.
Television
Watches
Advertising
My Hope When I Wrote The First Book Was That I Would Get To Do It Again. But It Was Not Entirely Clear That That Would Happen.
Book
Firsts
Clear
Life May Be Miraculous In Its Unlikelihood In The Universe, But It Would Be A Fallacy To Suggest That Its Rareness Makes It Inextinguishable.
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Would Be
Fallacy
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Reading
Antiques
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Museums
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Knows
I Have A Lot Of Cultural References That Have Amassed In My Brain Like Shrapnel Over The Years That Are Meaningful To Me.
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Years
Brain
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Thinking
President
First Of All, I Wish I Could Grow A Beard.
Wish
Beard
Firsts
I Would Say 70 Percent Of People Who Are In Therapy Are In Therapy Not Because Of Their Upbringing, Not Because Of Their Mean Sister Or Obsessions, But Because Of Anxiety Brought About By Lack Of Financial Security.
Mean
People
Anxiety
What Would I Put In A Museum? Probably A Museum! That's An Amusing Relic Of Our Past.
Past
Museums
Amusing
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.
Thinking
Earth
Busy
I Am Not Beautiful, So I Don't Know Why I'm Making Myself Ugly. But The Mustache Stays.
Beautiful
Mustache
Ugly
I Don't Really Collect Anything. I Mean, If I See A Piece Of Moxie Soda Memorabilia, I'll Probably Buy It. I'm A Sucker For Regional Soda Brands And Forgotten Histories And That Sort Of Thing.
Mean
Moxie
Pieces
Traffic Counting Was Very Boring And Cold To Sit Out On The Streets Of New Haven In Five Pairs Of Pants - Well, That's An Exaggeration; It Was Three Pairs Of Pants - In November For Hours And Hours Clicking Buttons Counting Which Cars Go Left, Right, And Forward.
Car
Buttons
Three
I Really Wouldn't Censor Myself. But Because It Was On Such A Slower Scale, I Would Throw Things Out, And I Indulged The Personal Stuff As Little Flashes Of Truth. Little In-jokes For Anyone Who Was Paying Particular Attention.
Attention
Littles
Stuff
I Would Say Aside From Moxie Soda Bottles And Masonic Artifacts, There's Nothing I Really Collect.
Moxie
Bottles
Soda
One Of The Things About Crowd Work That's So Exciting Is When You Discover A Character In The Audience Who's Interesting Or Funny, Who You Can Vibe Off Of. If Someone's Got A Weird Job That You Can Make Reference To Throughout, Or You Can Bring That Person Onstage - Humiliate Them, Or Celebrate Them! You Can Put People In Conversation With One Another. The Best Is When Something That They're Doing Can Reflect Back On Something That You're Doing.
Jobs
Character
People
I Am Not An Internet Superstar.
Superstar
Internet
Once 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.
Mean
Years
People
I Am Someone Who Values Knowledge, Actual Knowledge. I Also Value Stories And Fiction A Whole Lot, And That's Where The Fake Knowledge Comes In.
Fake
Fiction
Stories
Everyone Wants To Write A Book. Very Few People Are Able To Do It.
Book
Writing
People
I Have Learned That Newborn Infants Roll Their Eyes Around And Move Their Heads And Their Arms In Short Jerky Spasms. And If You Homeschool Them, They Will Stay This Way Forever.
Moving
Eye
Forever
I Know Electric Knives Are Excellent For Carving Turkeys That Have Had Their Bones Removed And Been Forced Into A Mold To Shape Them. Please Note That Those Turkeys Are Called Hams.
Knives
Turkeys
Ham
You Know The Old Saying: "history Is Written By The Winners. And Also, The Team Of Hand-picked Historians That The Winner Keeps Hidden Away In An Underground Bunker".
Team
Hands
Winner
I Am A Marginally Employed Person Who Can Escape With My School Teacher Wife To The Waters Of Maine For Much Of The Summer.
Summer
Teacher
School
We Have All Been Empowered By The Web: Everyone With A Keyboard Can Now Effectively Broadcast To A National Audience. In A Sense, It Puts Each Of Us On The Same Footing As The Major Media Conglomerates, Except For Aol, Who Now Apparently Own All Our Thoughts And Teeth.
Media
Teeth
Keyboards
When You're A Young Person, You Are Biologically Driven To Believe You Are Immortal, And That's Why You Engage In All Kinds Of Risky Behavior You Stop Once You Feel Death's Cruel Breath On Your Neck. I Think That As A Straight White Man In Particular, I Was Tempted To Believe That I Was Immortal And Eternal Because, After All, In This Culture, Straight White Dudes Are The Heroes Of Every Story That You See Or Read About With Very Rare Exception. So How Could The Story Go On Without The Hero, You Know?
Hero
Believe
Men
I Think For The Foreseeable Future, The Truth Is Going To Be Awful And Funny All At The Same Time.
Thinking
Awful
Truth Is
I Am Someone Who Values Truth - Actual Truth As Opposed To "truthiness." I Am Also Someone Who Has Been Trained In Deconstruction In The Literary Theory Department Of Yale University, So I Am Someone Who Is Tempted To Believe That No Absolute Truth Is Possible.
Believe
Literary Theory
Yale
It Seems That Every Generation Needs Its Public, Tweedy, Literary Personality To Sell Its Consumer Electronics. To Whatever Degree I Can Live Up To The Plimptonian Legacy, I Am Humble And Proud.
Humble
Personality
Degrees
What I Collect? Interesting Jobs. Always To My Thrill And Excitement, But Ultimately To My Exhaustion, I Collect Interesting Jobs. If An Interesting Job Comes Along, I Take It; That's Why I Do So Many Things. I'm Lucky To Be Able To.
Jobs
Interesting
Lucky
Comics Have A Problem, And That Is Continuity - The Obsession With Placing The Characters In An Existing World, Where Every Event Is Marked In Canon. You're Supposed To Believe That These Weepy Star Boys Of Now Are The Same Gung-ho Super Teens Fighting Space Monsters In The '60s, And They've Only Aged Perhaps Five Years.
Stars
Believe
Character
In A Mad Moment, My Family And I Purchased A Home In Maine Because It's The Place In The World That My Wife Loves Better Than Any Other Place Or Any Other Human, And So I Have Committed My Life And What Had Once Been My Economic Security That Has Now Returned To Insecurity, To A Patch Of Painful, Rocky Land On The Shores Of Horrible, Cold Waters To A Place Where People Go In The Summer To Experience Autumn Because Leaves Start Falling On August 1.
Summer
Fall
Home
One Can Always Come Up With Funny Lists And Jokes. You Know What? I Take It Back. Not Everyone Can Always Come Up With Funny Lists And Some Jokes. I'm Very Lucky To Have A Gift Where I Can Do That Pretty Ably.
Lucky
Lists
Come Up
Anyone Of Conscience Could Come Look At My Book And See It As An Esoteric Oddity Or Be Intrigued By It. It Could Happen Either Way On A Thousand Different Little Decisions Each Individual Might Make.
Book
Oddities
Decision
My Type Of Humor Is Me Not Caring Whether People Know What I'm Talking About Or Not.
Caring
Talking
People
Creating Fake Facts Does Require A Measure Of Haphazard Research, Insofar As They Need To Not Just Be Possible, But Also Interesting.
Creating
Interesting
Fake
I Had Some Very, Very Fond Memories Of The People I Worked With And The Authors I Worked With - And I Won't Mention Any Names - But As I Have Been Traveling Through Rural Maine Over The Past Few Weeks, One Of My Favorite Things To Do Is To Go Into Bookstores On The Side Of Rural Routes And Paw Through The Old Copies Of Tom Clancy And Trevanian Books They Have In There For Weird Old 1970s Thrillers That I Haven't Read Yet.
Memories
Book
Past
Unfortunately For Humanity, I've Gotten Into The Habit Of Providing My Own Closing Music For Shows By Singing A Song And Playing The Ukulele.
Song
Ukulele
Humanity
Why Certain Political Classes Want Purposefully To Keep Americans In A State Of Perpetual Debt And Uncertainty And Why Certain People Don't Want A Middle Class - Because Middle Class Creates A Certain Happiness. You Know What I Mean?
Mean
Class
People
More People Have More Access To More Readers For Less Money Than Ever Before In History. It Means A Lot Of Dross; But It Means A Lot Of Very Talented People Can Find And Nurture A Readership In Ways That Were Not Possible Twenty Years Ago. From A Creative Perspective, That Is All That Writing Is About.
Writing
Mean
Years
I Used To Enjoy The Anonymity Of Being A Literary Figure And Occasionally A Public Radio Figure.
Radio
Used
Figures
My Candidacy Is A Compelling Argument For My Candidacy. I Want To Be President.
President
Want
Argument
My Fame Is Due To Broadcast Television.
Television
Fame
Dues
You Wouldn't Want To Live A Life In Which You Are Loved Or Approved By All People On Earth Or Even Within Your Own Geodetic Dome Full Of Your Jumpsuited Followers.
People
Followers
Earth
It Would Be Rather Naive To Imagine That Oprah Doesn't Have An Earth Evacuation Plan. You Know Richard Branson Does - His Is In Plain Sight.
Sight
Doe
Would Be
I Never Stopped Feeling Abject Terror Until I Got On Television And Went On A National Ad Campaign And Realized, "i Will Be Able To Feed My Children. I Have Somehow Averted The Destiny That Awaited Me, Which Is Endless, Crippling Debt Forever."
Children
Destiny
Forever
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