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I'm a writer of faith. I was raised Catholic, and I have a deeply Catholic imagination.

Julianna Baggott

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Julianna Baggott
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: September 30
Essayist
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Wilmington
Delaware
Faith
Deeply
Catholic
Raised
Writer
Imagination

More quotes by 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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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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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
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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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People know the difference between good and evil in their hearts-if they search them. Religions twist good and evil. Their differences are the kind that need to be taught because they aren't natural.
Julianna Baggott
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One of the reasons I write in different genres is that I get to have the feeling - even fleetingly - that I'm not just writing like Baggott again. I can escape myself.
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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I prefer a cluttered workspace.
Julianna Baggott
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She knows that whispers can be useful. Sometimes they contain real information. But usually they're fairy tales and lies. This is the worst kind of whisper, the kind that draws you in, gives you hope.
Julianna Baggott
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I am politically pro-choice, but personally pro-life. I have my faith but refuse to force it on the world at large - especially this world, so brutal and unjust. I cannot make these wrenching personal life and death decisions for others - nor do I believe they should be made by a church run by childless men.
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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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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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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Writing stories is the habit of lying put to good use.
Julianna Baggott
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I'm a woman, but I've been a sexist, too.
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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I don't have a favorite. I need different genres at different times.
Julianna Baggott
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Writing is my obsession, my passion. My relationship with it is one of the most complex and agonizing and richly vexing that I have in my life.
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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I'm a writer of faith who worries about the intolerance of religion. I look at the past and fear we haven't learned from it. I believe that humanity is capable of evil as well as great acts of courage and goodness. I have hope. Deep down, I believe in the human spirit, although sometimes that belief is shaken.
Julianna Baggott