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I prefer true over happy now.

Julianna Baggott

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Julianna Baggott
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: September 30
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Wilmington
Delaware
Prefer
Happy
True

More quotes by Julianna Baggott

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As a writer, my main objective is to tell the story urgently - as if whispering it into one ear - and to know the characters intimately.
Julianna Baggott
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And I know I'm supposed to feel guilty for wanting people to buy my books... and books in general? Novels and poetry, they belong to the realm of art. How dirty of us to try to hawk art! But, after a decade of hand-wringing and apologies, I can't quite muster the guilt anymore.
Julianna Baggott
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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.
Julianna Baggott
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I feel too much. It's like being drummed to death from within. You know?
Julianna Baggott
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So far, I should be calm and more specifically not like that...Anything else? Would you like to do surgery on my personality? How about open-heart surgery? I´ve got some tools
Julianna Baggott
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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.
Julianna Baggott
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Women are constantly underestimated in our power, our reach, our collective pull.
Julianna Baggott
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My childhood was marked by the great fear of nuclear holocaust. We practiced our Civil Defense Drills, lining up in hallways, curled to the floor, but we knew we'd die or, worse, survive only to suffer radiation and slow death.
Julianna Baggott
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When you're in the world looking for only one thing, you find it or it finds you. The obsession can be mutual
Julianna Baggott
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Literature has done great work for feminism - writing and reading are a practice of empathy - and great literature will continue to do so.
Julianna Baggott
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She let him go once. Every day demands that she release him over and over again.
Julianna Baggott
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It's not that I bounce ideas off of my children as much as it is that having children has had a profound effect on the way I see the world. They have mined my soul. They've made me a better person and therefore a more empathetic writer.
Julianna Baggott
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Love is selfless, it is a weakness, a giving in, a constant falling.
Julianna Baggott
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I write across genres so I see them, more often, as complementary instead of separated by boundaries.
Julianna Baggott
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You learn to exploit genre for the more important things - to my mind - like story, character, image, language.
Julianna Baggott
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Sometimes when reading aloud to my husband, I'll start crying. It completely stuns me. As if the words in my body and on the page - in relation to each other - are cocooned against my own feelings about what I'm writing until they're loosed in the air and become their own. Then I realize what I may or may not have done.
Julianna Baggott
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My oldest sister was an actress living in NYC by the time I was ten, and desperately wanted to be the one in charge of the words.
Julianna Baggott
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I don't have a favorite. I need different genres at different times.
Julianna Baggott
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I have faith in human beings. I struggle with that faith.
Julianna Baggott
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Writers are socially observant. We find people endlessly fascinating, and real life is mysterious. Sometimes it's hard to stop staring at the strut and squawk of my fellow man. They can be quite inspiring. Sometimes it's hard to stop talking to them to see what in the world they're thinking.
Julianna Baggott