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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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Heidi Julavits
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: April 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Portland
Maine
Find
Identity
Authorial
Life
Role
Accuracy
Roles
Remove
Achieve
Manner
Memories
Attempt
Interesting
Requires
Persons
Memory
Person
Guess

More quotes by 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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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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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.
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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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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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.
Heidi Julavits
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It's fascinating to imagine two successful writers in one house. But when you think about it, it isn't very unusual. In fact, so many writers have writer spouses.
Heidi Julavits
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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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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
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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.
Heidi Julavits
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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
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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 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
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I don't think fake people living in a fake house in a fake suburb are any less dismissible or believable than a fake psychic attending a fake school in a fake town. Nothing's inherently believable about any kind of fiction, because all of it's untrue.
Heidi Julavits
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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
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I've subsequently become conscious of MAKING MEMORIES. Which makes me sound like a scrapbooker.
Heidi Julavits
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I love this idea of the body as a trauma archive!
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 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
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Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.
Heidi Julavits