Paolo Bacigalupi

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

“A gamble. Everything was a damn gamble. Betting against luck and the Fates, again and again, and again. She kept walking, waiting for the bullet.”

“Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience.”

“Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way of justice.”

“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.”

“As an author, you're really grateful for the people who are supporting you, but on some other level, that can be a dangerous echo chamber.”

“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.”

“I'm less crazy and unhappy when I'm writing.”

“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.”

“I focus a little more on pacing when I write books in the young adult category, and of course there's the great American fear of anything sexual, so that's somewhat backed off in YA.”

“Belief.” He snorted. “I could kiss a thousand crosses. Fucking belief.”

“Mahlia… understood Doctor Mahfouz and his blind rush into the village. He wasn’t trying to change them. He wasn’t trying to save anyone. He was just trying to not be part of the sickness. Mahlia had thought he was stupid for walking straight into death, but now, as she lay against the pillar, she saw it differently. She thought she’d been surviving. She thought that she’d been fighting for herself. But all she’d done was create more killing, and in the end it had all led to this moment, where they bargained with a demon … not for their lives, but for their souls” (p. 403)”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I didn't think of myself as writing 'cli-fi,' but I'll take the label. I'll take any label that makes someone think they might be interested in my stories.”

“Fiction is optimistic or unrealistic enough to demand that there should be a meaningful narrative.”

“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.”

“But then, that was the problem with pretty toy stitches. When real life got hold of them, they always tore out.”