A biography for Julianna Baggotthasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“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.”
“Writers aren't born properly labeled so it is hard to know one when one appears.”
“When I first met you, I thought we were made for each other even though we seemed like opposites in some ways and we fought. But now...""What?""Now I feel like we weren't made for each other. We're making each other—into the people we should become. Do you know what I mean?”
“She let him go once. Every day demands that she release him over and over again.”
“But there it is: Everyone is alone, for life, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.”
“But she's still afraid that the more she misses him--his face, his skin, the way he looked at her--and the more hope she has that she'll see him again, the more she has to lose.”
“I've never thought there was anything I could hope to get by praying for it.”
“Don't shame the young for releasing their pent-up fear.”
“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.”
“Writing stories is the habit of lying put to good use.”
“The basic rule of storytelling is 'show, don't tell.'”
“If I'd learned nothing else, it was this: If you want to be a great writer, be a man. If you can't be a man, write like one.”
“I prefer a cluttered workspace.”
“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?”
“I didn't start writing so that I could more deeply know myself. I was bored of myself, my life, my childhood, my hometown. I started writing as a way to know others, to get away from myself.”