Ken Jennings Quotes & Sayings

For me, it started as a child with one of those little wooden jigsaw maps of the U.S., where's there's crocodiles on Florida and apples on Washington state. That was my very first map. — Ken Jennings

I would read the atlas for pleasure. I knew it was weird. It was weird. — Ken Jennings

It's so much fun that the money is just icing on the cake. There seems to be a lot of icing. — Ken Jennings

I can't relax and sink back in the couch and watch 'Jeopardy!' the way I used to. — Ken Jennings

As Jeopardy devotees know, if you're trying to win on the show, the buzzer is all. On any given night, nearly all the contestants know nearly all the answers, so it's just a matter of who masters buzzer rhythm the best. — Ken Jennings

The real cocktail party conversation would probably go something like this:
"Actually, I have a degree in geography."
"Geography? Wow, I'm terrible with maps. I bet YOU know all your state capitals, though!"
(Geographer's smile freezes, left eye starts to twitch uncontrollably.) — Ken Jennings

We regret the insinuation that Mr. Alex Trebek is a robot, and has been since 2004. Mr. Trebek's robotic frame does still contain some organic parts, many harvested from patriotic Canadian schoolchildren, so this technically makes him a 'cyborg,' not a 'robot.' — Ken Jennings

When you make a decision, you need facts. If those facts are in your brain, they're at your fingertips. If they're all in Google somewhere, you may not make the right decision on the spur of the moment. — Ken Jennings

I would stare at maps of Delaware for hours. — Ken Jennings

Being a nerd really pays off sometimes. — Ken Jennings

The leader turns the pyramid onto its head in order to serve others. — Ken Jennings

Knowing lots of answers but being a millisecond slow on the buzzer is indeed very frustrating. — Ken Jennings

We don't realize how hard it was to drive anywhere outside the major cities less than a century ago. — Ken Jennings

I always bring my kids vacation souvenirs printed in Comic Sans, so they know I love them but not unconditionally. — Ken Jennings

You watch an old 'Jeopardy!' and the categories alone are very plain. 'Poetry,' or 'Movies,' or 'Physics.' If you watch it now, though, there'll be a theme board where the categories are all Hitchcock movies. Lots more jokes, lots more high-concept categories and questions. — Ken Jennings

One of the most significant barriers to progress is the lack of effective leadership. — Ken Jennings

Getting your ego out of the way has an even deeper organizational impact. — Ken Jennings

I pick up Dylan. He certainly takes after his father: about three-quarters of his body weight seems to be head, and three-quarters of that is ears. — Ken Jennings

I always feel a certain sense of reverence in libraries, even small city ones that smell like homeless internet users. — Ken Jennings

Eratosthenes, the mapmaker who was the first man to accurately measure the size of the Earth, was a librarian. — Ken Jennings

People are using GPS systems to find millions of little hidden objects throughout the world - often as simple as a piece of Tupperware hidden in the woods. You go to a website, you get the latitude and longitude to get the specific location of a certain specific hiding space, and then you go there and see if you can find it. — Ken Jennings

Borders may divide us, but, paradoxically, they're also the places where we're nearest to one another. — Ken Jennings

I threw the opening pitch at a Blue Jays game, and after the pitch, the mascot asked me if I wanted him to sign the game ball, which I thought was funny. What would he write? "Best Wishes, Some Guy in a Bird Suit"?" — Ken Jennings

Trivia is mainstream. 'Nerd' is the new 'cool. — Ken Jennings

The key is selecting the right people to join the team, those with the right skills and values, those who embrace our purpose. — Ken Jennings

When you see people who are really good at game shows, the one common attribute is a cool head under pressure: an ability to perform as well in the studio, surrounded by lights and noise, as you do on your couch. — Ken Jennings

The great thing about knowing stuff is that anyone can do it. — Ken Jennings

Even before you understand them, your brain is drawn to maps. — Ken Jennings

When a leader keeps personal ego in check it builds the confidence and self-esteem of others. — Ken Jennings

Trivia, as I've said before, shouldn't really be called "trivia." Facts about history, geography, books, movies, music - this is the stuff that used to be called good old-fashioned "general knowledge," the stuff that everybody was supposed to remember from school, regardless of their career niche. We lost something the more we specialized - it started to drain away this vast pool of information that everybody knew. Knowledge was what connected us, and now it distinguishes us. — Ken Jennings

pg. 245 ...there probably isn't a marriage or a relationship or a friendship anywhere today that wasn't jump-started by trivia. — Ken Jennings

Self-esteem is important because it sets up a powerful cycle of personal growth and willingness to take risks. — Ken Jennings

(Trunk-or-treating, for those who don't know, is just like trick-or-treating, except with cars instead of houses, lame decorations instead of awesome ones, and no fun instead of fun.) — Ken Jennings

During the whole 'Jeopardy' experience, I felt like I was living a bit of a double life, I would be secretly flying out to L.A. to tape new shows, hoping that none of my coworkers would notice the absence and figure out what was going on. 'Jeopardy' tries very hard to keep their secrets. — Ken Jennings

To serve the many, you first serve the few. — Ken Jennings

The thing you like/are good at is a sacred thing ... — Ken Jennings

pg. 58. As a kid, I always assumed the know-it-alls on Jeopardy! were obviously the smartest people in America. If you were smart, that's how you showed it: by knowing all your state flowers and kings of Saxony. But what if Rob's right and that's a different, much shallower kind of intelligence? Is my mountain of flash cards all for naught? — Ken Jennings

Serving Leaders direct credit to others. — Ken Jennings

There's just something hypnotic about maps. — Ken Jennings

If youre a vegan who ran a marathon & got your dogs from a shelter, how do you decide which thing to wedge into the conversation first? — Ken Jennings

The future is here. — Ken Jennings

The Final Jeopardy! questions seem to be, by design, things you can't know. And so it's not about who knows them, but who can figure them out in thirty seconds. — Ken Jennings

Many cases of twentieth-century American map geekdom, it seems, began the same way that many twentieth-century Americans began: conceived in the backseats of Buicks — Ken Jennings

Twitter makes you a comedian in the same way that digital cameras make you a photographer — Ken Jennings

The theory of servant leadership is vital, but it's the active Serving Leader that makes the critical difference. — Ken Jennings

In this country, we were not into detail. Europe developed detail." "Why do you think that is?" "Weather. The whole history of England consists of finding things to do out of the weather. Which tells you why Russia was even worse. That's why Russian novels have 182 characters: bad weather. — Ken Jennings

There were two problems with this idea. First, it led to crappy "virtual reality" movies like Virtuosity and The Lawnmower Man. And second, in the long run, it turned out to be totally wrong. — Ken Jennings

The commercial break before Final Jeopardy is usually the only time that the show stops tape. You're given as long as you want to do the math required to make your wager. — Ken Jennings

It's really changed me. For the first time I'm in favor of the Bush tax cuts. — Ken Jennings

Arthur Jay Klinghoffer, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, has argued that geography seems less relevant than ever in a world where nonstate actors
malleable entities like ethnicities, for example
are as powerful and important as the ones with governments and borders. Where on a map can you point to al-Qaeda? Or Google, or Wal-Mart? Everywhere and nowhere. — Ken Jennings

I have condemned my kids to a lifetime of geographic illiteracy. — Ken Jennings

If you never open a map until you're lost, you're missing out on all the fun. — Ken Jennings

So maybe we never would have realized we were so compatible if we hadn't been trading song lyrics and movie dialogue. That's textbook trivia right there."
Mindy looks unconvinced. "But that's how *everybody* gets together. They find some dumb thing they both know a little about that they can talk about until the waiter brings dinner. According to you, there probably isn't a marriage or a relationship or a friendship anywhere today that wasn't jump-started by trivia."
"I think that's exactly right," I agree. "To trivia. — Ken Jennings

For some reason the most devoted mapheads seem to be kids. — Ken Jennings

I remember one of my last shows, the Final Jeopardy! clue was something like 'These two boys' names are top 10 boys' names in the U.S., they both end with the same letter, and they're both names of Jesus' apostles.' Now, obviously that's not a knowable fact. — Ken Jennings

I have always loved maps. — Ken Jennings

There must be something innate about maps, about this one specific way of picturing our world and our relation to it, that charms us, calls to us, won't let us look anywhere else in the room if there's a map on the wall. — Ken Jennings

By putting others first the Serving Leader is able to catalyze the creation of high- performance teams. — Ken Jennings

You live overseas, you see these exotic places and you want to know about them. But, weirdly, it also made me homesick for all these very prosaic places in America. — Ken Jennings

What are those bulb things you're slicing?"
"You've never seen fennel? It looks like celery and tastes like licorice. — Ken Jennings

Sure I have a cell-phone, so I don't have to remember everyone's number anymore, but that really wasn't a core part of my brain. — Ken Jennings

It's boring to have the same guy win. I'm actively rooting against myself. — Ken Jennings

If it's on the Internet, then it's gotta be true. — Ken Jennings

If I start outsourcing all my navigation to a little talking box in my car, I'm sort of screwed. I'm going to lose my car in the parking lot every single time. — Ken Jennings