Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes

Quotes about:

• Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it's a lot smokier and less defined.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Hands, Ideas, Long

  47 Copy quote

• The problem with surviving was that you ended up with the ghosts of everyone you’d ever left behind riding on your shoulders.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Riding, Ghost, Problem

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2012). “The Drowned Cities: Number 2 in series”, p.84, Hachette UK

  15 Copy quote

• Knowledge is simply a terrible ocean we must cross, and hope that wisdom lies on the other side.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Lying, Ocean, Sides

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2008). “Pump Six and Other Stories”, p.97, Simon and Schuster

  8 Copy quote

• The more you read about and immerse in a culture, the more it comes alive, and the more textured and nuanced and detailed and unstereotypable it becomes.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Culture, Alive

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  4 Copy quote

• I'm a chess piece. A pawn,' she said. 'I can be sacrificed, but I cannot be captured. To be captured would be the end of the game.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Games, Chess Game, Chess Pieces

  6 Copy quote

• Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Soul, Pieces, Killing

  6 Copy quote

• Politics is ugly. Never doubt what small men will do for great power.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Men, Doubt, Ugly

  "The Windup Girl". Book by Paolo Bacigalupi, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• I write at a standing desk, which has helped me be much more productive and solved some back problems, but mostly all my quirky habits have to do with procrastination and avoidance rather than with work. I'm slowly trying to stamp those out.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Writing, Procrastination, Quirky

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  6 Copy quote

• It’s human nature to tear one another apart. Be glad you come from such a successful line of killers.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Successful, Tears, Lines

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2011). “Ship Breaker: Number 1 in series”, p.103, Hachette UK

  5 Copy quote

• We are nature. Our every tinkering is nature, our every biological striving. We are what we are, and the world is ours. We are its gods. Your only difficulty is your unwillingness to unleash your potential fully upon it.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Nature, Tinkering, World

  9 Copy quote

• The future looks a bit bleak to me.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Looks, Bleak, Bits

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  5 Copy quote

• At some point, you realize you can't provide a perfectly monolithic description of a foreign culture's future any more than you can provide a monolithic description of your own hometown's future. Your choices about what to emphasize and what to leave out make all the difference, and ultimately, your fingerprints and biases and viewpoints are going to be all over the story.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Differences, Choices, Culture

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  10 Copy quote

• A desert's a stupid place to put a river.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Stupid, Rivers, Desert

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2008). “Pump Six and Other Stories”, p.138, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Men are loyal when you lead from the front.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Leadership, Men, Loyal

  5 Copy quote

• Maybe because we're photosynthesizing we'll do more work outside. So our laptops will have to get rid of these damn glossy screens that have become so popular. And then we'll sit around outside, sucking up sun, getting fat and green, and surfing the net.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Work Out, Surfing, Green

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  4 Copy quote

• Most of the news about the state of the environment is pretty ugly. This is frightening for me personally, but actually motivational for me artistically.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  News, Ugly, Environment

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  4 Copy quote

• Food should come from the place of its origin, and stay there. It shouldn't spend its time crisscrossing the globe for the sake of profit.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Sake, Should, Profit

  "The Windup Girl". Book by Paolo Bacigalupi, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• Sex and hypocrisy. They go together like coffee and cream.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Sex, Coffee, Hypocrisy

  "The Windup Girl". Book by Paolo Bacigalupi, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• It's still a load. If there was balance, the soldier boys would all be dead, and we'd be sitting pretty in the middle of the Drowned Cities, shipping marble and steel and copper and getting paid Red Chinese for every kilo. We'd be rich and they'd be dead, if there was such a thing as the Scavenge God, or his scales. And that goes double for the Deepwater priests. They're all full of it. Nothing balances out.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Boys, Cities, Soldier

  4 Copy quote

• I like fast plots with things that explode.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Plot

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  4 Copy quote

• The surfeit of bad trends pushes me to set my stories in worlds which are often diminished versions of our own present.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Stories, World, Trends

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  6 Copy quote

• Environmental science is telling us a lot about our future and what it could look like, whether we're talking about global warming (the current poster child for the environment) or a loss of genetic diversity in our food supplies, or the effects of low-dose chemicals on human development.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Children, Loss, Talking

  Source: www.sfsignal.com

  6 Copy quote

• We write dust epitaphs for our vanquished enemies and watch them blow away in the desert wind.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Writing, Blow, Dust

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2008). “Pump Six and Other Stories”, p.97, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• An untrampled scorpion troubles no one.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Scorpions, Trouble

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2008). “Pump Six and Other Stories”, p.91, Simon and Schuster

  36 Copy quote

• Life is exponential. Two becomes four, becomes ten thousand, becomes a plague.

  Paolo Bacigalupi

  Life, Two, Four

  Paolo Bacigalupi (2010). “The Windup Girl”, p.214, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

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