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" 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
Problems
Down
Boring
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" Fiction is optimistic or unrealistic enough to demand that there should be a meaningful narrative. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Narrative
Meaningful
Enough
" 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
Rise
Power
Influence
" The marketplace tells us that good, visceral storytelling has a place. But there are lots of questions about the format that stories take. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Good
Place
Questions
" I say I write extrapolations. I look at data points and ask what the world could look like. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Like
Look
Data
" Businesses that decide to be reality based and identify where they're vulnerable to climate impact, that start thinking about how to buffer against it, are going to be able to take advantage of shortages. When the water runs out, not everyone is in the same pickle. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Impact
Water
Thinking
" Originally, 'The Windup Girl' started as a short story - a very gnarly, complicated short story set in Bangkok that didn't work very well. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Girl
Work
Story
" 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
Human
Together
Nature
" 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
Care
Choice
Choose
" When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that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
Ship
World
Writing
" I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie, and things are smooth. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Liar
Lie
Proud
" 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
Questions
Fact
Know
" 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
Going
Out
Think
" 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
Me
Own
Genetics
" I don't put a very clear label on my work. If anything, I write science fiction - looking at a moment now, in the present, and then extrapolating outward to think about what the future might look like if this particular trend goes on, or if this particular trend is the most dominant. That's a science fictional tool. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Future
Moment
Science
" I think that, when I think about the future that 'The Water Knife' represents, it's one where there's a lack of oversight, planning and organization. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Future
Planning
Think
" All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Science
You
Writing
" 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
World
You
Know
" I'm less crazy and unhappy when I'm writing. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Crazy
Writing
Unhappy
" 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
Enough
Story
Me
" The conclusion I came to was that even if I couldn't sell books, I still liked the process of writing. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Process
Writing
Conclusion
" 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
Parents
People
Country
" I have friends who are science journalists, and I'm seeing stories of theirs or talking with them about ideas that they're pitching. Certain kinds of science are around me all the time, like climate change and biology. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Change
Ideas
Me
" The sources and research I use for my inspiration aren't your typical sci-fi subjects, but it's really driven by obsession and personal anxiety more than trying to take up the sword and do what's right. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Research
Anxiety
Right
" When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapolation, the tools of anticipating the future - those are science fictional questions. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Science
Future
I Am
" The young adult category is particularly interesting to me in terms of science fiction and fantasy tropes. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Young
Me
Fantasy
" 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
Happy
Think
Personality
" 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
Life
Looking
Up
" Everyone in China knows The Topics. The television stations and newspapers run the same state-generated stories all across the country, and the Chinese form their opinions based on these somewhat controlled sources. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Country
Television
Same
" I used to work for a newspaper that covered local resource issues, and my coworkers and friends were journalists. Their reporting work was always pretty grim. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Always
Work
Pretty
" I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works. "
Paolo Bacigalupi
Events
World
Wisdom