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I've always said that you were too smart to have a profession. Smart people are hopeless in the face of anything actual. They are terrible cooks. They cannot dress themselves. They are children who need guidance and protecting.

Heidi Julavits

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Heidi Julavits
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: April 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Portland
Maine
Children
Profession
Needs
Smart
Protecting
Always
Terrible
Hopeless
People
Face
Guidance
Faces
Cooks
Cannot
Actual
Anything
Dress
Need
Dresses

More quotes by Heidi Julavits

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I really did for a few weeks think, I'm in pain because the world needs me to save it. Which is so ridiculous and egotistical.
Heidi Julavits
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I wouldn't be myself if I weren't always trying to be someone else. I only have so much time on this earth and I want to be as many people as possible.
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If I'd done the discovery before I wrote the book, then there would be nothing to discover. It would feel dutiful instead of exciting.
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We're taught to find the antecedents to our adult failures in childhood traumas, and so we spend our lives looking bacwards and pointing fingers, rather than bucking up and forging ahead. But what if your childhood was all a big misunderstanding? An elaborate ruse? What does that say about failure? Better yet, what does that say about potential?
Heidi Julavits
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The belief that one's suffering has a greater cosmic purpose, and is thus more exciting and more noble, well, it made a lot of sense to me.
Heidi Julavits
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When you are expending much energy on someone else's demise, it's like you weaken your psychic immune system.
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You know you're screwed when a Western doctor recommends acupuncture.
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I don't usually read my reviews. I've noticed older reviewers are much more bothered by the plot complications. Younger reviews don't seem to be bothered by the complications at all.
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Whenever I hang out with my female friends, I feel like context is never needed. They can just say two words about something, it's like hearing the first two notes of a song and you can always identify the song. They can just say a word and I know exactly what they're talking about.
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I used to have a really sharp memory. And its loss has proven destabilizing from an identity perspective.
Heidi Julavits
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We want to believe we couldn't be replaced, and that the people we love are irreplaceable.
Heidi Julavits
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If I can just stop being so stressed out, maybe my cancer will get better! This is far less scary than treating a disease of unknown etiology.
Heidi Julavits
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As such, anything is always possible, even if your protagonist is a plumber. But it's the possibility, the limitless possibilities, of any fake life, that make writing about it so challenging.
Heidi Julavits
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You should never read online comments if you want to keep thoughts above the belt.
Heidi Julavits
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I obviously read and adore traditional fiction. I teach traditional fiction I also teach all kinds of not-so-traditional fiction.
Heidi Julavits
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Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.
Heidi Julavits
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I don't think women are, by definition, toxic to one another. I think women are simultaneously competitive toward and idolatrous of each other. I thrive on that challenge and that desire.
Heidi Julavits
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I guess what I find so interesting about memory, and its role in a person's identity, is how the attempt to achieve accuracy requires you to remove yourself from your life in an authorial manner.
Heidi Julavits
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Some people just make me feel mentally endangered. Whatever dark stuff is going on in their head, it's coming at me and I need to escape.
Heidi Julavits
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I want the plot to be as complicated as possible. Usually I'll write all the way through to an end, and then I go back and try to fix the ending so that it makes sense. I don't think out the plot ahead of time.
Heidi Julavits