Quote

As a writer, you want to go somewhere else sometimes. You want to vary the terrain that you're exploring.

Heidi Julavits

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Heidi Julavits
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: April 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Portland
Maine
Exploring
Somewhere
Writer
Else
Sometimes
Terrain
Vary

More quotes by Heidi Julavits

Image
Whether I'm writing about plumbers or psychics or psychic plumbers, I want to find a creative space that imprisons me usefully, so I can deviate with purpose.
Heidi Julavits
Image
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
Image
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
Image
No matter what you wear, not everyone is going to understand what you're saying.
Heidi Julavits
Image
I wish somebody knew whether or not I'm Jewish.
Heidi Julavits
Image
Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.
Heidi Julavits
Image
If, at some future point, my face collapses around my eyes, I'd probably do something about it. My eyes are where I live, and if people couldn't see them, no one would know me.
Heidi Julavits
Image
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
Image
I used to have a really sharp memory. And its loss has proven destabilizing from an identity perspective.
Heidi Julavits
Image
I love this idea of the body as a trauma archive!
Heidi Julavits
Image
You know you're screwed when a Western doctor recommends acupuncture.
Heidi Julavits
Image
I wont deny that I have a far more productive writing life without the Internet, mostly because I rekindle my ability to concentrate on one thing for a period of longer than three minutes. My curiosity is channeled inward rather than Internet-ward.
Heidi Julavits
Image
The twisty nature of psychic attack - are you being attacked, or did you bring this attack on yourself? - speaks to me of an American cultural paradox we all grapple with. There's the rampant litigiousness of our society, and the desire to blame others for our misfortunes.
Heidi Julavits
Image
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
Image
We're not saints, any of us. Maybe somebody is, but I don't know those people. But we all know people who behave very smugly and are very egotistical and put you down as a manner of improving their own place in the world or improving their own place in the world.
Heidi Julavits
Image
If you agree with an outside person's interpretation of you, that's a happy bit of affirmation. It means you're communicating externally what you believe to be true internally. If you disagree, it helps clarify how you understand yourself. And maybe makes you productively question how to improve your communication skills.
Heidi Julavits
Image
I needed to understand this random bad bit of luck as part of a bigger design. Otherwise I was suffering meaninglessly. This made the suffering a lot worse.
Heidi Julavits
Image
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.
Heidi Julavits
Image
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
Image
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