Paolo Bacigalupi Quotes
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Businesses that decide to be reality based and identify where they're vulnerable to climate impact, that start thinking about how to buffer against it, are going to be able to take advantage of shortages. When the water runs out, not everyone is in the same pickle.
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I say I write extrapolations. I look at data points and ask what the world could look like.
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When somebody keeps telling you, 'This book is amazing,' you sort of have this pleasing instinct to say, 'Oh, let me make you happy again; let me do that trick again.'
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Every time he makes plans for his future, he seems to fail. Every time he reaches forward, the world leans against him, pressing him down.
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The marketplace tells us that good, visceral storytelling has a place. But there are lots of questions about the format that stories take.
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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.
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A desert's a stupid place to put a river.
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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.
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The symbol for the Environment Ministry is the eye of a tortoise, for the long view-the understanding that nothing comes cheap or quickly without a hidden cost.
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Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way of justice.
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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. We went down that path once, and it brought us to ruin.
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Maybe storytelling belongs in audio - a short story is the length of a commute. That can be a sacred spot where you have the ear of the reader without having to compete with other media like games or TV.
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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.
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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.
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They say in the military that a good battle plan can last as long as five minutes in real fighting. After that, it comes down to if the general is favored by fate and the spirits.
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Sex and hypocrisy. They go together like coffee and cream.
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I know people who have gone into career death spins, and that's something you're always aware of as a writer.
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Nature has become something new. It is ours now, truly. And if our creation devours us, how poetic will that be?
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She does not know how little anyone cares to separate wheat from chaff, when all anyone wants to do is burn a field.
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Disarm to farm.
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If you bargain when they squeeze your balls, they will only squeeze again.
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Knowledge is simply a terrible ocean we must cross, and hope that wisdom lies on the other side.
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If you act like a servant, you will die like a dog.
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Politics is ugly. Never doubt what small men will do for great power.