395 Quotes by Chuck Klosterman

I think the larger sect of liars are people who think they are telling the truth, but who really have no idea what the truth is.

Self-deception allows us to create a consistent narrative for ourselves that we actually believe. I’m not saying that the truth doesn’t matter. It does. But self-deception is how we survive.

Not all crazy people are brilliant, but almost all brilliant people are crazy.

Saying you like “Piano Man” doesn’t mean you like Billy Joel; it means you’re willing to go to a piano bar if there’s nothing else to do.

Even though I wanted to experience all these things I was interested in, I couldn’t get them. So I had to think critically and culturally about what was available.

I feel sorry for people who have to edit me. Which is why book writing is by far the most enjoyable. Really the only thing it’s based on is whether it’s good or not. No book editor, in my experience, is getting a manuscript and trying to rewrite it.

When Arthur Schlesinger Sr. pioneered the ‘presidential greatness poll’ in 1948, the top five were Lincoln, Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Jefferson. Only Wilson appears to be seriously fading, probably because his support for the World War I-era Sedition Act now seems outrageous; in this analogy, Woodrow is like the Doors and the Sedition Act is Oliver Stone.

If you’re doing an interview, you need conversational tension. After you talk to them, you’re not going to have a relationship with them, they’re not going to like you, they’re not going to be your friend.

You’re trying to find new ideas in people. I always think to myself, what question I am least comfortable asking the person? And then I make sure I ask it early in the interview.