I remember that in Baltimore, where I grew up, we would drive by the radio station and tower of WBAL, and I would try to picture the people inside and what they did there. – Ira Glass
Honestly, I find the analysis of dreams is one of the dullest things. I say this as a therapist kid. I find them deeply uninteresting, as a window to the soul. – Ira Glass
Honestly, like, I’m a superfan of the ‘New York Times,’ but I know nothing about how they put it together, and I really don’t care. – Ira Glass
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. – Ira Glass
A lot of broadcasting, I think, is doing a tremendous amount of preparation and trying to act like, ‘Oh, this thought is just occurring to me right now’ – and speaking sincerely. – Ira Glass
You’d think that radio was around long enough that someone would have coined a word for staring into space. – Ira Glass
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. – Ira Glass
I think people who live in New York don’t realize just how much time they spend talking about the subway. – Ira Glass
I am mostly a pretty worried person. In conversations, I am always worried about what to say. – Ira Glass
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. – Ira Glass
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. But a lot of effective and interesting radio is based on one character who reacts to the world. – Ira Glass
I’m trying to make perfect moments. And those generate meaning. If you go deep enough in how to make a moment, very quickly you come to how narrative works – to what we are as a species, how we’ve come up with telling stories in scenes and images. – Ira Glass
The radio is good for taking somebody else’s experience and making you understand what it would be like. Because when you don’t see someone, but you hear them talking – and, uh, that is what radio is all about – it’s like when someone is talking from the heart. Everything about it conspires to take you into somebody else’s world. – Ira Glass
But you can make good radio, interesting radio, great radio even, without an urgent question, a burning issue at stake. – Ira Glass
I liked the people at Brown, while I really disliked most of the fellow students I had met at Northwestern. – Ira Glass
Where radio is different than fiction is that even mediocre fiction needs purpose, a driving question. – Ira Glass
I’ll meet listeners who tell me what a great voice I have. But I don’t have a great voice for radio. My voice is the utterly normal voice, but sheer repetition has made them think it’s OK. Mick Jagger once was asked, ‘What makes a hit song? He said, ‘Repetition.’ – Ira Glass
Radio is more powerful the closer we mimic the way we actually speak to each other. That’s why Howard Stern is such a great radio talent. People on his show are actually speaking to each other. You might not like what they’re saying, but they’re real conversations. – Ira Glass
In general in New York, we all eat like kings. Insane quality, mind-blowing variety, at all price ranges. – Ira Glass
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. – Ira Glass
I’m a reporter – if I don’t interview someone, I don’t have much to say, and I definitely can’t just sit down and knock out 800 words on any subject you give me. – Ira Glass