Why ever stop?

Every day, the Little Box of Quotes podcast publishes a super-short recording of a quotation. For over 3 years—1,247 times and counting—I’ve said, “Hello, Craig here! Today from my little box of quotes…”

Why do all this work? It’s fun! I love sharing quotes (and in podcast form is just one way.) The total listens is north of 60,000 and some have been heard many hundreds of times. I like to imagine all the people who smiled, or went “hunh“. Each episode is only downloaded a dozen–or–so times when published. But then each episode slowly gets heard, as people randomly stumble upon them (I know not how.)

Which episodes are popular? Here are the top 10…

  1. Habit ~ Jim Rohn
  2. Ignorance ~ Vincent Thibault
  3. Fear ~ Cus D’Amato
  4. Motivation ~ (unknown)
  5. Freedom ~ Michael Diamond
  6. Struggle ~ James Terry White
  7. Revenge ~ Marcus Aurelius
  8. Positive ~ (unknown)
  9. Stand ~ Marcus Aurelius
  10. Torment ~ Seneca

What do I think of that top-10 list? Listening to them—especially the number-1 “Habit” quote—makes me squirm. I can hear so much about them that I’d do differently now. Maybe that’s a good thing? And they all seem so silly… it’s just… Craig reading quotes. But there’s definitely something to this, about the resistance and making art.

How do I record them? They’re pretty raw. I say the entirety of what you hear in one pass. If I make a horrible mistake, I just do it over. There’s no editing—I simply have some basic export settings to set the overall level. The point of the entire thing (when I started) was to practice doing the thing. Talk to the mic. Don’t clean it up in post-production… rather, figure out how to not make mouth-noises, how to breath more quietly, how to sound comfortable, etc.

Where do I still struggle? Saying people’s names! (Pronunciation is difficult too, but that’s not what I mean.) The specifics of how I say the name carries a tremendous amount of information. The tiniest change has a huge affect. Do I sound incredulous that that person ever said something that clever? Do I sound overly reverential? Dismissive? And how long do I pause before saying their name? Faced with endless options, I just do my best and then ship it.

What’s my favorite part? (I have a rapid process: record, replay, save/export, schedule podcast episode. I can do one episode in a few minutes.) Sometimes, maybe 1 in 10, when I play it I get chills. Sometimes, the quote itself, combined with countless other details, makes something I just love.

ɕ