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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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Heidi Julavits
Age: 56
Born: 1968
Born: April 20
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Portland
Maine
Deviate
Find
Writing
Plumber
Psychic
Psychics
Creative
Imprisons
Space
Usefully
Purpose
Plumbers
Whether

More quotes by 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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When you are expending much energy on someone else's demise, it's like you weaken your psychic immune system.
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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.
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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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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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I used to have a really sharp memory. And its loss has proven destabilizing from an identity perspective.
Heidi Julavits
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You know you're screwed when a Western doctor recommends acupuncture.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.
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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I love this idea of the body as a trauma archive!
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