Chris Hardwick Quotes

The idea of the archetypal nerd is totally blurred these days. So many people of this current generation have grown up with technology and video games. It's just a part of the world now, a part of our shared culture.

It's so much easier to give advice than to take it.

I had a personal blog, but why does anyone care that I went shopping for hats?

Every year on my birthday, I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year as a sort of musical diary because I am a teenage girl.

I began to more fully embrace the trying of new skills when I asked myself, Would I rather protect my ego or do stuff in life?

I'm not fun to bowl with. I take it way too seriously. I have high expectations for myself.

Humans cannot produce viable offspring with our closest animal cousin: the chimpanzee. We cannot impregnate a chimp. So you know what that means? No condoms.

The worst day ever was when I found out my grandfather was going to die.

A lot of people complain in the year 2003 that it's not the world of tomorrow as foreseen in the 1950s. 'Where are the flying cars?' people say. 'Where are the robots who bring us blue drinks and warn us of danger?' Alright. We don't have those things, specifically, folks, but you know what we do have? Laser vaginal rejuvenation surgery.

I do lots of crowd work in my set, because I enjoy writing material through riffing and conversation.

I feel like so much of why I sort of want to work in television is so that people know to come see me live.

Any time you're lucky enough to get on a show people watch, it's a good thing.

We didn't understand irony yet in the '80s; we just kind of existed at face value, so there was no nerd cool yet because the digital revolution was still in its infancy.

When I was growing up, I was as socially outcast as any nerd could possibly be. I was in the chess club, I brought D&D stuff to school, I had every game system you could imagine, I spent countless hours at arcades, computer camp, loud presence in the Latin Club. All that stuff.

If you have laser-like brain it's not always focused on the most productive things. If you want to play Halo: Reach all day, that's fine, but if you want to accomplish some other things, here are some ways to do that using your innate nerd gifts.

I don't really read reviews and comments that much. There just isn't a lot to be gained from it.

I really don't have time "to Twitter," it's not something that should grab your day. That's a big misconception, actually, about the whole service. You don't go out of your way to tweet, you just post when you've got something. Hopefully, not while you're driving. It complements your life more than takes over your life.

Trying to make strangers laugh is crazy and more than a little narcissistic.

I have opinions about the differences between Memphis barbecue and Texas barbecue. Put me in the kitchen and you'll see how Southern I can be.

The 'Hipster Nerds' like stuff because they hate it. It's like they ironically like it.

If you can build your career around your passions, then you're winning in life; that's one of the best things you can ask for.

I've seen nerdists make tributes to their obsessions out of Legos that are like works of art. It just goes to show you how pervasive this stuff has become in our culture. It really is an ideology that you can subscribe to now.

Stand-up for me is usually a weekend thing. I go out of town and just do it.

I've been out of work so many times in my life that relying too much on just one job is terrifying.

Stand up straight. If you stand up straight, you will instantly feel better about yourself, and you will project a better image to the world, one that says you don't feel like you have to be hunched over and closed off.

My father was one of the greatest professional bowlers of all time. Seriously. Billy Hardwick: PBA Hall of Fame, Player of the Year in '63 and '69, and the first winner of the triple crown of bowling, among other things.

I learned not to confuse 'busy' with 'productive,' but I'm still far too addicted to email to resist its early-morning digital snuggles.

You can't touch the strippers. Why are you paying to not touch someone? That is weird. How do you win in that situation? That is like walking into a deli, starving, and being like, 'Here's $300 - can I stare at the roast beef? Better yet, I'll sit down in this chair and you can mash it around my mouth and balls.

Our mandate at Nerdist is that we only get involved with nice people around things that we love. We have the luxury of being in the demographic that we're programming for.

It's funny: when I first started getting vocal about how much I liked 'Doctor Who,' I didn't realize how deep the fan base was.

I played tournament chess from fifth grade up into high school.

There's no ironic appreciation of things we love, even of things that are in fact ridiculous, which a hipster might take and own and show the world the humor in it.

Freelancers are 'free' because they take risks - they don't like being told what to do. That's both exciting and daunting, because you have to police you.

When I was younger, my parents used to say, "Trust us on this. We have more experience than you." And I was like, "Shut up, you don't know anything!" But I was an idiot. They did know more stuff because they'd experienced more things.

The nerdist movement is less about consumers; there is a large contingent that are creative nerdists instead of consumers.

Like lycanthropy, the nerd gene can skip a generation. My maternal grandfather was a technophile.

There are certain parts of a classic nerd's brain that can destroy that person - obsessing about things to the detriment of everything else in your life. But those are the same tools that you can use to turn everything around.

Some people learn comedy, and some people just are comedy.

There's something about shooting webs out of my wrists and climbing up things that just makes me happy.

Are you a passenger on a ghost ship or are you the pilot?

No human ever became interesting by not failing. The more you fail and recover and improve, the better you are as a person. Ever meet someone who's ALWAYS had EVERYTHING work out for them with ZERO struggle? They usually have the depth of a puddle. Or they don't exist.

I'm fascinated by people's process. Everyone's process is a little bit different, and just to see the different paths that people take to get where they are is really interesting to me.

Rats are just Ziploc bags full of disease.

In the end, all that time I spent in the 'Star Wars' universe fostered galaxies of creativity and made me a better person here on Earth, because it taught me that everyone counts. That's why I can sincerely and with a straight face say: 'May the Force be with you.'

I spent a lot of time bowling as a kid, mostly because I grew up in bowling alleys. They were kind of my playgrounds.

Mainstream culture is like your mom: It's always a little late to catch on and gets easily confused by technology, but it means well.

Comic-Con is interesting because there's so much going on at once, it's literally impossible to do everything. You need clones and some sort of hoverboard so you can surf over the crowd of packed-in nerds.

Do you think Patrick Swayze now goes up behind people in pottery classes and hugs them just to crack up other ghosts?

Nerds get caught up in minutiae, because there is a tremendous and fulfilling sense of control in understanding every single detail of a thing more than any other living creature.

The difference being that a nerd would wear a D&D shirt because he loves D&D while a hipster would wear a D&D shirt because it's ridiculous that he is wearing a D&D shirt.

I don't know why people don't want to talk about their numbers. I guess in a sense, there's a bit of performer nudity, a bit of ego nudity when you expose your numbers, I guess because someone's are higher or someone's are lower. I've never really talked about the numbers with anyone, so maybe I'm not supposed to.

Videogames make you feel like you're actually doing something. Your brain processes the tiered game achievements as real-life achievements. Every time you get to the next level, hot jets of reward chemical coat your brain in a lathery foam, and it seems like you're actually accomplishing stuff.

Real philosophy is like trying to read an alarm system installation manual in Korean.

I think for a lot of people, bowling is sort of a joke. But I love it, and it means a lot to me, so any chance to help promote it or celebrate it or not make the hackiest jokes - 'Bowlers are like plumbers and they wear the craziest shirts!' - I'm way into.

As a comedy nerd, I get a lot out of the podcast because I'm genuinely interested in the people I'm talking to.

Worry is a misuse of your imagination.

When you look at your freelance career, it's really like a mall. And if you look at a mall, it's a self-contained system that has a flow and logic to it. You'll probably have one or two really bigger jobs, those are like your anchor stores.

For me personally, I have a fear of, 'If I stop, I'm going to die.' If I stop doing the things that are enriching to me or creatively exciting to me or if I stop creating, then I feel stagnant. If something isn't growing, it's dying.

I feel like being nerd is not about the superficial quality; it's about how nerds approach life. It's much more emotional and mental than it is you're some fat guy living in your mom's basement, which I think is just a hacky stereotype.

You don't have to believe everything you think."
- Chris Hardwick, "The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life)

The thing about hipsters is that they take very seriously trying to make themselves look like they don't take themselves seriously.

I love the South. Although I grew up primarily in Memphis, my family moved around a ton when I was a kid. I guess I never stayed in one place long enough to pick up the accent, but I definitely identify as a Southerner.

A big company is like trying to steer a luxury liner.

Comic-Con is nerd Christmas. People go wanting to have fun.

Alcohol is like pouring smiles on your brain.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, it took effort to be a nerd. You had to seek out the nerd stuff.

There's a lot of laughing on a horror movie set. They're magical in that way.

Comedy has sort of been my life-long obsession. I literally obsessed over comedy. I really didn't play sports - for me it was just comedy, computers and chess club; those were my big things.

No matter what tricks you use or what decisions you make, go easy on yourself as someone who's on a never-ending quest for improvement.

If you're looking to freelance, just get as many gigs going as you can, and you can make it work. It's about getting as many side projects as possible, keeping as many balls in the air as you can, and what you're doing, basically, is diversifying your portfolio, with the same kinds of rewards. One falls through, and you still have another one to work on.

You walk into a strip club with a wad of cash; they all flock around you. Strippers are just pigeons with tits. They go where the bread is.

Playing Xbox for 23 hours straight is cool and all, but I'm going to teach you how to spend time on things in your life that will get you the following two things: paid and laid.

It's very easy to attack ourselves. Even comforting in its familiarity, but you must resist this urge at all costs. Dwelling on the past or your perceived flaws will do nothing but keep you under emotional house arrest and hamper your progress. Commit yourself to growth and reward yourself with kindness for choosing to do so!

I do find some of the meanest, most exclusionary people are the nerds. And they rebel against other nerds! What are you doing? As much as I love nerds and the nerd movement, the nerd-on-nerd violence is really bad. A lot of times, nerds are the meanest ones online. And also, the trolling can be very extensive because they're smart.

The podcast movement was really a creative survival mechanism for standup comics.

When I was in grade school I was into chess club, Latin club, D&D, computer camp - everything that made vaginas go away.

When you first start working, you take whatever job is offered, because you have to build your resume. But you don't think about what you're building.

I think the mistake a lot of people make with new media is they just focus on one thing. But any one thing - just doing podcasts or just having a website or just doing television - isn't enough anymore.

There's not many a man who would get shot and then come visit the family responsible.

Bowling is all physics and energy distribution. It's F = ma. So it is actually one of the most science-y sports, because it literally is just a ball and a surface and objects to knock down.

Sober strip clubs are horrible. When you are sober you see the matrix code behind a strip club. You're paying girls to pretend to like you until you run out of money so they can walk away.

For podcasters, people are just being themselves in a public fashion. So when someone is attacking a podcast, they're really attacking the person, because the person is the podcast. So I think that's why podcasters take it to heart. It's a very personal form of media, probably the most personal form of media.

I do podcasts for the same reasons I do stand-up comedy. I love it, and I don't care if anybody else gets it.

If you're going into stand-up, you're hyper-analyzing the world and asking as many questions about a thing as you possibly can so you can figure out the ultimate nature of that thing.

I probably get one or two days off every five or six weeks.

When I was in school, if you wanted a computer, you had to build one. But today, computers are everywhere. We're all obsessed with technology and having the latest gadgets. Nerd culture is ubiquitous.

People LOVE giving bad news. They love it. This is because negative information GREATLY empowers the giver and makes them feel important.

You don't need 30 million people to listen to your podcast. If 10,000 people listen to your podcast, which is not a hard number to achieve, then 10,000 people are listening, and you can build a community, and literally change the world just recording into a microphone.

American television constantly tries to co-op British comedy and create their own version of it. Most of the time it doesn't work; obviously, in the case of 'The Office,' it did. But a lot of times, it doesn't really work.

Any nerd who grew up around the time that I did, BBC programming was a treasure chest for us.

When you don't take an aggressive role in shaping your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, you become a helpless passenger floating through the universe like a ghost ship, merely reacting to wherever it takes you.

Twitter is basically text messaging. Twitter is a guy you can always elbow in the side and say, "Hey, look, a guy in a clown suit just threw up!" And I don't have 400-800 words to say about that, I just wanted to say that one thing.

Nerdists, unlike nerds, tend to be creators as much as consumers. They're creative consumers.

All television is an advertisement - that's why it exists. It wasn't the art-form first and then the commerce - it was that they could put on entertainment long enough to distract people into looking at products. It's for focusing people on advertising and separating you from money in some way. Some people forget that. The side product is that we get some great eye candy. TV is the best it has ever been right now. I don't have a problem with that since it's what keep us employed.

I think when I look out and I see there's so much negativity in the world and a lot of people are unhappy and a lot people are anxious, it just feels like that's one view of the world. But you don't have to always focus on that view of the world.

In the '90s, you couldn't say the word 'nerd' to someone when pitching a show. They would have considered that too niche and wouldn't have listened.

I categorize nerds as creative-obsessive. A lot of nerds are creative people who obsess almost unnaturally over the minutiae of things.

I think doing the podcast may have been one of the best career decisions I've ever made in my life.

We're gonna have fun, god***it!