Julianna Baggott Quotes

I prefer true over happy now.

Basically if you burst into my office the walls themselves will flutter as if alive - maybe that's the reason for all the wings in 'Pure.

One of the reasons I write in different genres is that I get to have the feeling - even fleetingly - that I'm not just writing like Baggott again. I can escape myself.

Omission is a sin only if, in the process of deceiving, you forget the truth. Lying is a sin only if, in the process, the lie becomes the only truth.

The truth is that for those 86 long years when the Red Sox went without a World Series win, fans were not only in a recession, but trapped in a longstanding, deeply entrenched sports depression.

Try to think of writing as a gift - more complexly put: it is the curse and the cure.

Writers are socially observant. We find people endlessly fascinating, and real life is mysterious. Sometimes it's hard to stop staring at the strut and squawk of my fellow man. They can be quite inspiring. Sometimes it's hard to stop talking to them to see what in the world they're thinking.

My work is to know the characters intimately and to tell their story.

Our stories are what we have,” Our Good Mother says. “Our stories preserve us. we give them to one another. Our stories have value. Do you understand?

Each genre has something to teach me about the others. Not all the lessons are transferable, but many of the most important ones are.

I prefer a cluttered workspace.

I'm about to start something new. I'm waiting to be whelmed. The whelming as you start something new is quite something.

She glances back before stepping into the alley, and she catches her grandfather looking at her the way he does sometimes--as if she's already gone, as if he's practicing sorrow.

Is it wrong to kill something that wants to kill you?

The basic rule of storytelling is 'show, don't tell.

And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.

Writing across genres has made me more prolific. When one is fighting me or simply not cutting it, I turn to another.

What does it mean to be Catholic and not a Catholic? I feel adrift, homeless. My Catholic imagination allows me to see the soul as a lit breath, seeking the divine. It persists.

So far, I should be calm and more specifically not like that...Anything else? Would you like to do surgery on my personality? How about open-heart surgery? I´ve got some tools

The poem has to bear the weight with image, language... the screenplay with dialogue, plot.

Love is a luxury. It's something that people are allowed to indulge in when they're not simply trying to survive and keep other people alive.

The fact is there are many women who nod politely, even agree openly within their male-dominated often highly educated cultures, but vote their own minds.

She knows that whispers can be useful. Sometimes they contain real information. But usually they're fairy tales and lies. This is the worst kind of whisper, the kind that draws you in, gives you hope.

Literature has done great work for feminism - writing and reading are a practice of empathy - and great literature will continue to do so.

When a colleague of mine had a notable New York Times book, I said, turn one of the chapters in the collection into a pitch for a novel and sell it to your publisher.

It's not that I bounce ideas off of my children as much as it is that having children has had a profound effect on the way I see the world. They have mined my soul. They've made me a better person and therefore a more empathetic writer.

Are there books about us or something?” This makes Pressia angry - the idea that this world is a subject of study, a story, instead of filled with real people, trying to survive.

I'm a woman, but I've been a sexist, too.

I'm a writer of faith. I was raised Catholic, and I have a deeply Catholic imagination.

I write across genres so I see them, more often, as complementary instead of separated by boundaries.

Being cross-genre, you can encounter an image and decide not only how to best express it but what form would express it best.

I don't know when I'm writing dark. I don't know when I'm writing funny or even heartbreaking. I'm always just trying to write it true.

I am politically pro-choice, but personally pro-life. I have my faith but refuse to force it on the world at large - especially this world, so brutal and unjust. I cannot make these wrenching personal life and death decisions for others - nor do I believe they should be made by a church run by childless men.

As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.

I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed with confidence. But the truth is my characters start doing and saying things I don't expect.

My oldest sister was an actress living in NYC by the time I was ten, and desperately wanted to be the one in charge of the words.

Writers aren't born properly labeled so it is hard to know one when one appears.

My childhood was marked by the great fear of nuclear holocaust. We practiced our Civil Defense Drills, lining up in hallways, curled to the floor, but we knew we'd die or, worse, survive only to suffer radiation and slow death.