Chris Hardwick quotes:

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.

Steve Martin said that philosophy is good for comedy because it screws up your thinking just enough, and I agree with that. Being forced to see life's metadata is good training for looking for interesting angles on a topic.

While the liberal media elite depict the bowler as a chubby guy with a comb-over and polyester pants, the reality is that bowling is one of the most tech-heavy sports today. Robotic pinsetters and computerized scoring were just the beginning.

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.'

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

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've gone from being bullied by jocks as a kid to being bullied by nerds as an adult.

I don't know if I'm a Twitter addict. That seems kind of harsh. I would say it's more that I'm seriously involved. That it's a long-term relationship - like a girlfriend, which my actual girlfriend loves to hear.

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.

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.

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.

Comment threads are the new therapy for people. They just go and post the worst things they can think of because they feel bad, and then other people start attacking them, and then they attack back.

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.

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.

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

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.

We're not in an information age anymore. We're in the information management age.

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.

You can't throw money at the Internet to make it work - it really is all about the quality of the content.

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

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

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.

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.

With stand-up, there's a little bit of an exaggerated reality because things have to be manipulated to create comedy, to create jokes.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

If I wasn't acting or doing stand-up, I would be in animation. Or if I had the discipline I might studies physics.

I like listening to people talk about things that they love. They get to express things they don't normally get to express.

Fleetwood Mac is just one of my all-time favorite bands.

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.

I think people have this stereotypical idea in their head of what a nerd is. People have said to me before, "You're not a nerd!" because I think they think of the classic Revenge Of The Nerds archetype.

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.

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.

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!

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 think some of what makes it a good podcast is that it's organic. It doesn't feel forced. If we can say anything about ours, it's that we're not faking it at all. We're genuinely interested in the people that we're talking to.

Being constructively critical is good, as long as your purpose is to improve your methods for future endeavors. Lying in bed and replaying failures and telling yourself you're stupid is a tremendous disservice to your efforts and what you can offer the world.

If you wish to achieve any success in this life, do your best to surround yourself with an orgy of good choices.

Jokes that make me laugh out loud when I write them almost always bomb. I have no idea why.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Every time I finish a record, it's sort of feels like, "I can't believe that I'm hanging out and having a conversation, and people are gonna listen to this." It's an odd thing, but it's really cool.

If you do a joke that's really old, then what happens is people on Reddit and Twitter just go, 'Real original, you're just doing old jokes!' But bands do it all the time.

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 almost think of nerd brains as rattlesnake venom; like, you can milk it. You can milk the pulpy venom out of the nerd brain and use it for good if you want to.

As someone who's very nerd-minded, whenever I see a lot of cross-platform stuff when I get bonus material on either side, then it makes me want to dive deeper, sort of like tearing apart the different pieces of the pie.

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.

Even before I had an assistant, my calendar was color-coded and I had all these different e-mail rules for how to prioritize e-mails, so I made it a point years ago to figure all that stuff out because my life was a mess.

Long ago you may have given up control of your brain and set it on autopilot either because it just felt like too much work. And it is work! But for me, this work was well worth it for the prospect of not waking up sad every day.

It changed my whole outlook. I lost a decade to self-pity, and the next thing I knew I was turning 40.

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.

Twitter is really a hyper-distilled version of how the internet should work - short bursts of relatively useful information.

I think being an outcast is what sort of strengthens the nerd movement, because you're isolated, so you have time.

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.

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.

What's more unnerving than magnetism, ghosts, and unpurified water? Gadgetmongers who purport to protect us from metaphysical monsters that go bump in the New Age night.

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.

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

Just as someone who's been interested in radio and programming for so long, I can usually tell when an interviewer is doing a segment just to fill a programming slot. They ask questions, but they don't care about the answers.

The lifeblood of YouTube is sharing.

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.

Comedy club audiences pay up to $25 per person and another fistful of cash to cover a two-drink minimum, so when they don't like something, they let you know - with silence.

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

Traditionally nerd-based culture is now a big sector of pop culture.

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.

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.

If you're able to build from your falls you'll be unstoppable and damn near fearless. You see, every time you fall down and get back up, you add another piece of body armor to yourself. You learn what not to do, how to do better, and how to create comfort through practice.

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.

I honestly think hipsters eat with their assholes because they consume everything wrong.

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.

When you hang around a lot of comedians long enough, you realize there's a certain gene, in every comedian. It's why we get hyper-analytical about things.

I do seem like the kind of guy who'd be obsessive about Rubik's Cubes.

The nerds provide the toys that distract the morons. So the nerds are sort of the new drug-dealers. We're the drug dealers of the 21st century because we provide all the brain candy for the mouth-breathers, for lack of a better word.

Steal moments of happiness if you have to, and then collect them until they are the dominant images in your psyche.

Don't tell television, but there is some superior programming being made on the Interwebz.

I'm just gonna do a podcast because it's mine, I can control it, I have complete responsibility over it, and no one can touch it.

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.

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

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.

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 best friend, Wil Wheaton, identifies himself as a geek.

One of the many reasons why I love stand-up so much is when you're performing, you get instant feedback. You know if stuff is working right away.

Television and movies just take so long. If you pitch a show or develop a project, it can be a year before your show even gets on the air, if it gets picked up. Just the concept of "I had this idea" and within a week it was in the world, that was a part of why it felt weirdly empowering as a performer.

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

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

The goal of almost every comic is to find a comedy voice - a specific point of view that an audience can latch onto.

We are in niche consumption mode, but 'niche' doesn't mean 'small' anymore. Niche can mean focused, and particularly with the Web, which is a global audience you can have something niche and still get 10 to 15 million views.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Alcohol is like pouring smiles on your brain.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Be offended by everything or be offended by nothing.

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.

Both my parents recognized early on that I wanted to do something in comedy, and they were really supportive. They're the ones who bought me Steve Martin records and let me watch R-rated comedies long before they probably should have.

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.

My mom is a big sports fans. Basketball, football, baseball, whatever. She calls into sports radio shows and gets into shouting matches, that's how intense she is about it.

When comedians get successful, the fans that they have aren't the fans they would hang out with. I don't have that problem.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Rats are just Ziploc bags full of disease.

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.