Watch Conan O’Brien say goodbye to late night in this clip, and try not to cry

I’ve never been able to think about Conan O’Brien -- who said goodbye to a nearly 30-year career in late night television Thursday night with a final, emotional sign-off -- without remembering an anecdote the legendary funnyman once shared in an interview.

I’m not exaggerating. I thought this story was so profound when I heard it, and it’s stuck with me whenever I see Conan’s name, face, or hear anything about him. He was talking with a New York Times journalist, and musing about the long tail of fame. About how, after enough time has passed, he reckoned that people are eventually going to ask themselves “Conan who?” This was a couple of years ago, and he was already talking about the inevitably of irrelevance. Because, as Conan put it to the journalist, “This is going to sound grim, but eventually, all our graves go unattended.”