Julianna Baggott Quotes

A good novel doesn't just transcend the boundaries of its target market - it knows nothing about target markets.

Sometimes the only way to fix a mistake- is to make it twice.

I believe that one of the most damning things about our culture is the adage to never talk religion and politics. Because we don't model this discourse at the dinner table and at Thanksgiving, we don't know how to do it well and we're not teaching our children about the world and about how to discuss it.

Some of the best work done to combat the Republicans has been wit and humor.

I've never thought there was anything I could hope to get by praying for it.

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.

Love is a luxury. It's something that people are allowed to indulge in when they're not simply trying to survive and keep other people alive.

I'm about to start something new. I'm waiting to be whelmed. The whelming as you start something new is quite something.

People know the difference between good and evil in their hearts-if they search them. Religions twist good and evil. Their differences are the kind that need to be taught because they aren't natural.

I prefer true over happy now.

Sometimes you meet someone and you know that your life will be different from then on.

The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again - without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.

Weakness, like not being able to bury the past. Weakness, like not giving up hope when you know you should.

The poem has to bear the weight with image, language... the screenplay with dialogue, plot.

First, you hand over some basics-overwhelming joy, existential angst, a giving-in to desire, etc. And then you promise to withstand talking idly about the weather, to encourage cliché, to uphold the virtues of average. You hand over the need to be understood and, in return, you get a bar of Normal soap. And you can wash in it and be daily reborn to a safe world of modest, enduring love or, at least, mild, well-mannered bonding.

The generation of women who came before us did much of our shouting. They laid the groundwork and now we can be calm and constant and steady.

If you look at the world one way, it takes from you - it's a thief of time, energy, creative mojo. But if you look at the world another way, it gives you an endless supply of motivation.

But there it is: Everyone is alone, for life, and maybe that's not such a bad thing.

Our imaginations are strong as children. Sometimes they get shoved aside, these imaginations. They get dusty and mildewed with age. The imagination is a muscle that has to be put to use or it shrivels.

I try not to divide plot and character. I get to know a character by what they want and fear and how those internal forces play out in their lives.

What does it mean to be Catholic and not a Catholic? I feel adrift, homeless. My Catholic imagination allows me to see the soul as a lit breath, seeking the divine. It persists.

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'm a woman, but I've been a sexist, too.

I write across genres so I see them, more often, as complementary instead of separated by boundaries.

Omission is a sin only if, in the process of deceiving, you forget the truth. Lying is a sin only if, in the process, the lie becomes the only truth.