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

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

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 really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I'm no pacifist. Sometimes force is necessary. But war is a choice.

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

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

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When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that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

When we talk about dystopias, especially in young adult fiction, a lot of them are essentially science fictional futures. They aren't necessarily tied to the traditional concept of dystopia. And so in that space, my impression is that kids love reading about weird, wild, adventurous places, and dystopia fits that bill.

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

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

Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect.

Paolo Bacigalupi

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

By nature I'm sort of an introvert.

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

Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes

I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie, and things are smooth.

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.

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

I'm really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I'm no pacifist. Sometimes force is necessary. But war is a choice.

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.

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

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.

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.

Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

By nature I'm sort of an introvert.

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.