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 More Quotes by Paolo Bacigalupi More Quotes From Paolo Bacigalupi 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 longhandsideas 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 ridingproblemghost 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 tinkeringnatureworld 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 losstalkingchildren Knowledge is simply a terrible ocean we must cross, and hope that wisdom lies on the other side. Paolo Bacigalupi oceansideslying 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 pieceskillingsoul I do not fight battles that cannot be won. Do not confuse that with cowardice. Paolo Bacigalupi cowardicebattlefighting The surfeit of bad trends pushes me to set my stories in worlds which are often diminished versions of our own present. Paolo Bacigalupi trendsstoriesworld When you were alone in the rising ocean, you grabbed whatever raft passed by. Paolo Bacigalupi risingocean But then, that was the problem with pretty toy stitches. When real life got hold of them, they always tore out. Paolo Bacigalupi stitchestoysreal No one else noticed, or cared. It was just something they did. Taking other people’s livestock. Other people’s lives. She watched the soldiers, hating them. They were different in so many ways, white and black, yellow and brown, skinny, short, tall, small, but they were all the same. Didn’t matter if they wore finger-bone necklaces, or baby teeth on bracelets, or tattoos on their chests to ward off bullets. In the end, they were all mangled with battle scars and their eyes were all dead. Paolo Bacigalupi tattoohatebaby Take three different Thai writers and ask them to extrapolate their county's future, and one hopes that you'll get three very different - but all deeply honest - versions. Paolo Bacigalupi honestthreedifferent Some things, it was better not to think about. It just made you mad and angry. Paolo Bacigalupi madmadethinking Politics is ugly. Never doubt what small men will do for great power. Paolo Bacigalupi uglydoubtmen They’d blame a castoff just for breathing. You could be good as gold and they’d still blame you. Paolo Bacigalupi breathingblamegold What I'm hoping to do though is to ground my extrapolations in specificity, and to make sure that the story I tell is deliberately and honestly told. Paolo Bacigalupi specificityhonestlystories Pain held no terror for him. Pain was, if not friend, then family, something he had grown up with in his crèche, learning to respect but never yield to. Pain was simply a message, telling him which limbs he could still use to slaughter his enemies, how far he could still run, and what his chances were in the next battle. Paolo Bacigalupi yieldpainrunning She’d survived the Drowned Cities because she wasn’t anything like Mouse. When the bullets started flying and warlords started making examples of peacekeeper collaborators, Mahlia had kept her head down, instead of standing up like Mouse. She’d looked out for herself, first. And because of that, she’d survived. Paolo Bacigalupi flyingexamplecities She smiles at him, too young to know him for a stranger, and too innocent yet to care. Paolo Bacigalupi innocentcarestranger Plenty of people say my guesses about a future drought in the western U.S. (where I live and grew up) are wrong, so I don't see why I won't be wrong in some people's eyes when I go set a story on foreign shores. Paolo Bacigalupi eyestoriespeople
