Ira Glass Quotes

"When I say something untrue on the air, I mean for it to be transparently untrue. I assume people know when I'm just saying something for effect. Or to be funny."

"People are generally forced to change. We don't want to change, and then something absolutely forces us to realize that what we are doing isn't working or that our picture of the world is wrong. We fail. So we change."

"I'm in production year round. I work long hours. I have a dog and a wife. There's not a lot of available time for consuming any culture: T.V., movies, books. When I read, it's generally magazines, newspapers and web sites."

"Traditional broadcast media seems old-fashioned and vague to me. When I watch television news, I'm aware of what skilled journalists they are, but I find it hard because of the corny way they present it."

"If you want somebody to tell you a story, one of the most easiest and effective ways is if you're telling them a story."

"In some theoretical way I know that a half-million people hear the show. But in a day-to-day way, there's not much evidence of it."

"In radio, you have two tools. Sound and silence."

"There is a feeling, when you listen to radio, that it's one person, and they're talking to you, and you really feel their presence as one person."

"The pledge drive has everything going against it as broadcasting. It's repetitive. It's ad-libbed by people who can't ad-lib. It's about asking for money, which is something nobody wants to hear, even from their own relatives."

"I am such a do-goody, people-pleasing kid - or I was - I don't think I've ever been fired, not even from an ice cream shop, magician for kids' parties, not even in my early jobs in radio."

"Any story hits you harder if the person delivering it doesn't sound like some news robot but in fact sounds like a real person having the reactions a real person would."

"I just have a harder time, I think, feeling close to people without self consciousness."

"I feel like, in general in my work life, my main goal has been to just be in a situation where I'm not bored with my job. That's been the entire principle. Got my wish."

"Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question."

"Just when did I get to the point when staying at a hotel wasn't fun?"

"I suppose I shouldn't go around admitting I speak untruths on the radio."

"You'd think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space."

"It's not a terribly original thing to say, but I love Raymond Carver. For one thing, he's fun to read out loud."

"But you can make good radio, interesting radio, great radio even, without an urgent question, a burning issue at stake."

"We're Jews, my family, and Jews break down into two distinct subcultures: book Jews and money Jews. We were money Jews."

"But sadly, one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you're being sincere all the time."

"I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot."

"One reason I do the live shows - and the monthly speeches at public radio stations - is to remind myself that people hear the show, that it has an audience, that it exists in the world. It's so easy to forget that."

"I am mostly a pretty worried person. In conversations, I am always worried about what to say."

"I don't tweet because I don't need another creative venue. I don't need another form for self-expression. I don't need another way to get my thoughts out to people. I have one. I'm good."

"I don't take care of my voice at all, which is one reason that I sound as bad as I do."

"I don't own a radio. I listen to everything through apps or on my iPhone. And then I download the shows I like. Shows like 'Fresh Air', 'Radiolab', 'Snap Judgement', all those shows."

"I feel like in an interview situation, it's a kind of intimacy that I can understand and handle - versus in real life, when I'm much more of a bumbler and have a hard time."

"I think one of the reasons that I got so good at it, as somebody making radio stories, is that on the radio I can actually - I can understand what's happening in the interview and can make a connection in a way that makes sense."

"I think the name of the show, 'This American Life' - we named it that just because it seemed like it made the thing feel big. But we don't think about whether it's an American story or not. We happen to be Americans. I think for the stories to work, they have to be universal."