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" I know people who have gone into career death spins, and that's something you're always aware of as a writer. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

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" Teens want to read something that isn't a lie; we adults wish we could put our heads under the blankets and hide from the scary story we're writing for our kids. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" As far as 'Windup Girl' becoming a hit - none of us expected that. 'Night Shade' was just hoping not to lose their shirts, and I had grown up hearing from everyone that science fiction didn't sell, so all of our expectations were very low. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I am interested in agricultural corporations and how they function. The idea that they own the genetics of our food supply is a really compelling thing to me. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" We're all happier when we know less, because the details are frightening and haven't really improved much. The more you pay attention, the more horrifying the world is. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" When we live the 21st-century good life, almost every aspect of it is predicated on not looking at the implications of what we're up to. Happiness at this point has a lot to do with not looking, so you don't feel complicit in some vast and awful enterprise. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Economies are embedded inside ecosystems. Companies dependent on tourism, for example, are affected by low rainfall - there's less snow for skiers, and forest fires are more intense. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" As an author, you're really grateful for the people who are supporting you, but on some other level, that can be a dangerous echo chamber. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I'm definitely writing my fears. It's almost therapeutic to at least voice a terror, to say, 'I'm worried that Lake Powell looks low and Lake Mead looks even lower.' "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I think inherently, a little bit, I'm a bit of a pleaser, and I want people to like me and be nice, and to not ruffle feathers and just make everybody happy and stuff. It's a personality flaw. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I'm interested in how we react when we're heavily pressed. When we're vulnerable and our survival is in question, how do we behave? "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Mostly I sat down and said, 'I'm not going to write a boring story.' And that actually, surprisingly, solves most of your problems. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I focus a little more on pacing when I write books in the young adult category, and of course there's the great American fear of anything sexual, so that's somewhat backed off in YA. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" As a kid, I always liked reading stories where I had a power-projection fantasy. I wanted to be inside of a story where I had power and influence, was going to rise to power, was going to somehow influence my society. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" The things that have really gotten confusing to me is how you balance the desires of your publishers to produce things on a schedule, and people are always sort of giving you ideas on what you should follow up with or how you should proceed next and things like that. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" Sometimes when we label something dystopian fiction, I feel like we're trying very hard not to use the words 'science fiction,' because science fiction has those horrible connotations of rocket ships and bodacious babes. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" People don't actually stay still, you know - when their area is a disaster, they go somewhere else, right? And that's just a natural human impulse. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I'm less crazy and unhappy when I'm writing. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I think the fact that we, as writers, don't engage with resource-level questions is a symptom of our society where we just don't know where our stuff comes from. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" The young adult category is particularly interesting to me in terms of science fiction and fantasy tropes. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" My conception of my ideal reader has expanded quite a lot as I've matured: Ultimately when I think of my ideal reader, it's someone who's not sitting down with the intention of automatically arguing with the book: somebody who's going to give me enough slack to tell my story. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I didn't think of myself as writing 'cli-fi,' but I'll take the label. I'll take any label that makes someone think they might be interested in my stories. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I don't know why we choose to reach out to help another person, or why we decide that we can't, and withdraw and try to care only for ourselves, but I'm fascinated by that choice. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" A wise human would have an understanding of the supply chain and how the pieces fit together. But it's against our nature to think about it. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" There are parents who are really angry that I decided to portray people who have come into the country illegally as decent human beings. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" The loneliest Chinese man I ever met lived halfway up the Three Gorges, in Sichuan Province. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" When somebody keeps telling you, 'This book is amazing,' you sort of have this pleasing instinct to say, 'Oh, let me make you happy again; let me do that trick again.' "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I think there are narratives going on all the time that we think of as tangential - up until they turn out to be deciding factors in our lives. "

Paolo Bacigalupi

" I was interested in political failure here in the U.S. The way we're failing to work together to solve even our smallest problems, let alone the complex ones. "

Paolo Bacigalupi