We are often wrong about the past, but at least with the past you can change your thinking. We can't do that with the future. Chuck Klosterman More Quotes by Chuck Klosterman More Quotes From Chuck Klosterman 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. Chuck Klosterman available wanted thinking What's hard to do is describe why you like something. Because ultimately, the reason things move people is very amorphous. You can be cerebral about things you hate, but most of the things you like tend to be very emotive. Chuck Klosterman hate people moving Book writing is a little different because, in my case, my editor is a year younger than me and basically has the same sensibility as me. Chuck Klosterman writing book years When you're writing for newspapers you have all these parameters. You can't swear, you have to use short paragraphs, all that. If you stay within those parameters, you have lots of freedom because you're writing for the next day. Chuck Klosterman next-day use writing Contrary to what you may have heard from Henry Rollins or/and Ian MacKaye and/or anyone else who joined a band after working in an ice cream shop, you can't really learn much about a person based on what kind of music they happen to like. As a personality test, it doesn't work even half the time. However, there is at least one thing you can learn: The most wretched people in the word are those who tell you they like every kind of music 'except country.' People who say that are boorish and pretentious at the same time. Chuck Klosterman ice country people Even eternally free people are enslaved by the process of living. Chuck Klosterman process people I think one possibility [in the future] might be chemotherapy. And I'm always hesitant to say that because it makes it sound like I'm against chemotherapy. Right now, chemotherapy is the best cancer treatment therapy we have. But let's say we find some way where we can almost genetically engineer the DNA of our being and fight cancer that way. Then, the idea that we used to pump poison into people to fight off cancer will almost seem like the use of leeches or something. Chuck Klosterman cancer fighting thinking It's possible for me to imagine a generation of people maybe two generations removed from you who might decide that we have an adversarial relationship with technology. Chuck Klosterman technology two people I think this is the kind of thing where we're rapidly moving toward an age where most of the populace will be almost unable to imagine life without an Internet component interlocked with it. Chuck Klosterman age moving thinking Because I'm 44, I feel kind of lucky that I lived through this period where I started my career where there was no Internet at all, and now when I finish it, there will be nothing but the Internet. Chuck Klosterman lucky careers kind Let's say Twitter existed during the Civil War. We would have a better understanding of people in the Confederacy who were against slavery, people in the North who actually felt we should just let the South be the South. Because the way it is now, it seems like we have this portrait where everybody in Georgia hated Yankees and everybody in the North was enlightened. That wouldn't seem as clear cut as it does now. Chuck Klosterman yankees cutting war Sure there's a percentage of people who are like, "It snowed in May. I don't believe in climate change." Well, that's crazy, but that's always gonna be the case. I suppose if climate change happens much faster than even the dire experts predict, then I suppose opinions will change. Chuck Klosterman crazy believe people If you move furniture all day, if you're a construction worker, if you have a job that's real physical, this idea that there is a sport that involves the kind of conventional, traditional view of toughness, you see that still as a positive thing. Chuck Klosterman real jobs sports The people who review my books, generally, are kind of youngish culture writers who aspire to write books. When someone writes a book review, they obviously already self-identify as a writer. I mean, they are. They're writers, they're critics, and they're writing about a book about a writer who's a critic. So I think it's really hard for people to distance themselves from what they're criticizing. Chuck Klosterman distance writing book A lot of people involved with celebrity journalism have interesting ideas about the people they want to write about going into the interview. Then as soon as they actually sit down with that person, they basically ask the questions they think journalists are supposed to ask, and they start viewing themselves almost as a peer of the subject. Like they're going to become friends. That's why most celebrity journalism is so terrible. Chuck Klosterman writing people thinking I am of the opinion, and have been for a long time, that any kind of big technological move is almost always positive in the short term but inevitably somewhat negative in the long term. And I think there are many examples of this in every possible context. Chuck Klosterman long moving thinking If Donald Trump loses badly, it could mean the end of the GOP as one of the two significant parties. Chuck Klosterman party two mean Sometimes I wonder what will be the air conditioning of my dying days. What thing will they add that will make it impossible to be uncomfortable? Because I do assume that as an old person, I will be very comfortable. There will be something - a drug or some way to impact the air around me - that when I relax, I'm gonna feel great. So I do look forward to that. Chuck Klosterman impact drug air People hate the feeling that technology is dragging them into the future, that they're not really following what's happening, but being forced to be involved. Even if it makes their life better, it still feels like it's happening against their will. Chuck Klosterman technology hate people I think people feel very comfortable reviewing the idea of me, as opposed to what I've actually written. Most of the time, when people write about one of my books, they're really just writing about what they think I may or may not represent, as sort of this abstract entity. Is that unfair? Not really. If I put myself in this position where I'm going to kind of weave elements of memoir into almost everything, well, I suppose that's going to happen. Chuck Klosterman writing book thinking
