Originally, 'The Windup Girl' started as a short story - a very gnarly, complicated short story set in Bangkok that didn't work very well.
Paolo Bacigalupi
Related
I think it's a short story writer's duty, as well as writing well about emotions and charact...
ERIC BROWN I can tell you that you will have your hearts broken more by the people you love than by the people ...
MARGARET PETERSON HADDIX I loved 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.' I read it later as an adult, but I loved 'We Have Al...
SUZANNE COLLINS Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very h...
ERIC BROWN A pulp story without a detective and, obviously, somebody for him to do battle with is unthinkable, ...
OTTO PENZLER People say that life is short, but it isn't short. It's very long.
FRANK ABAGNALE Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON Let's head out to the ruins." - Dan Cahill
ROLAND SMITH I wasn't the prettiest girl in class. No breasts, short legs, gangly teeth. I didn't think I...
KATE MOSS It's a director's job to tell a story and he's very well versed in telling stories with ...
CUBA GOODING, JR. Usually, you lose interest in a story beyond a certain point. But with 'Highway,' there was ...
IMTIAZ ALI I used to take my short stories to girls' homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the react...
RAY BRADBURY The short story can't really hold an interesting event. It can't hold a death or a war or a ...
ETHAN CANIN Marilyn was terrible to work with. I was fond of her, she was a nice girl, but she was a damaged gir...
RICHARD WIDMARK I think it's a short story writer's duty, as well as writing well about emotions and characters, to ...
ERIC BROWN It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill
JUDE WATSON I wanted to write a story set in the Lovecraftian universe that didn't gloss over the uglier imp...
VICTOR LAVALLE They say anything can happen in a short series. I just didn't expect it to be that short.
AL LOPEZ The old detective story that's got a really complicated motive doesn't apply to mine.
RUTH RENDELL You know, it's sort of common wisdom among New York publishers that short story collections don&...
CHAD HARBACH I don't think I was anything short of ecstatic when I found out 'It's Kind of a Funny St...
KEIR GILCHRIST To make a long story short, there's nothing like having a boss walk in.
DORIS LILLY The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole...
EMMA DONOGHUE 'The 25th Hour' came out of the decision - a really very conscious decision - that I needed ...
DAVID BENIOFF I didn't follow the whole 'X-Men' story because it got too complicated. I'd pick up ...
AARON STANFORD If you were writing a short ghost story, I would say start very quietly and go, 'One, two, three...
SUSAN HILL It SMELLS ancient," - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON Palm trees were fanned by a warm, light breeze, and they rolled down their windows to smell the sea.
JUDE WATSON I'm not as good a singer as I am an actor. So that's why I - the stories I like so much is b...
ANDY GRIFFITH I didn't plan to write YA - I had a story that simply wasn't working as a straight-up fantas...
CARRIE VAUGHN I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,...
GEORGE SAUNDERS We have newsreaders behaving like actors, lowering their voices if it's a sad story, as if we di...
TOM BAKER When I read the 'Twilight' book, I didn't see it as fantasy. I saw it as a love story.
CATHERINE HARDWICKE I think the short story is a very underrated art form. We know that novels deserve respect.
NEIL GAIMAN Courier 12 is the Type-O blood of fonts - works just as good for a 'N.Y. Times' op-ed as a s...
ANDREW VACHSS I'm a very private person. My life story isn't for everybody.
BARRY BONDS My short stories have always pushed twenty pages. That's no length for a short story to be. You ...
ZADIE SMITH As a reporter, going around, you hear stories you can't prove, which means you can't put the...
PETE HAMILL The truth is, you have about three paragraphs in a short story, three pages in a novel, to capture t...
NANCY KRESS Star-crossed lovers who have a destiny that isn't necessarily going to work in their favor - tha...
KELLY ASBURY I was a very romantic, overly dramatic young lady, which served me well as a songwriter. Especially ...
JANE WIEDLIN I'm getting fat... because my size, I put on 20 or 30 pounds, it doesn't show very much... I...
YAO MING Early on, in discussions of financial oversight, people would say, 'Well, this is a very complic...
LARS PETER HANSEN Short stories consume you faster. They're connected to brevity. With the short story, you are up...
ALI SMITH About f-f-ace!" she said to the horse, flailing with her boots. "Into the barn, please. It's time fo...
PETER LERANGIS You see?" Damien leaned over his desk and spread out half a dozen charcoal sketches. "These are only...
RICK RIORDAN I have always loved westerns... supernatural westerns in particular. One of my first professional sh...
CULLEN BUNN The most-asked question when someone describes a novel, movie or short story to a friend probably is...
NANCY KRESS Jean Thompson's short-story collection 'Who Do You Love' is a beautiful book, but a hell...
JEFF GILES A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark fro...
STEPHEN KING From my very first movie, what was my concentration, my inspiration, was I didn't want to narrat...
ABBAS KIAROSTAMI I learned there were lots of realities in the world.
HARUKI MURAKAMI I didn't fall into the category of the 'classic Bond girl.' I had short hair - and no Bo...
CAREY LOWELL A short story is a shard, a sliver, a vignette. It's a biopsy on the human condition but it does...
WILL SELF Perhaps a body of work isn't necessary for a short story writer. If you do one story that survives i...
WILLIAM MAXWELL When I started out in the early 1930s, there were a great many magazines that published short storie...
IRWIN SHAW Newt Gingrich wrote a novel, and he's a short story. Bill Clinton wrote a biography, and he'...
JAMES MCBRIDE I don't want to steal anybody's story. I very much want to use the stories that I hear to ge...
DAVID LEVITHAN I didn't know the books and certainly didn't know the tragic origin story of Mary Poppins in...
JOHN LEE HANCOCK 'The Immigrant Story,' which took me about twenty-five years to write, was a very simple sto...
GRACE PALEY We, people, are so very, very complicated that no matter how well drawn a fictional character is, th...
RUTH RENDELL It all starts with a very solid, well-executed script, where the story is very clear and everybody i...
MARTI NOXON I was an educated girl. I'd done very well in school. I had a good point average and graduated f...
MARLO THOMAS I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World,' and it went like thi...
AUGUST WILSON From its inception by Michael Bennett, 'Dreamgirls' has always been an epic story with an en...
BILL CONDON I wanted to write a very simple story about a boy, a wolf, a girl, a bear and a forest, so I thought...
MICHELLE PAVER You set up the story, but the characters start talking, and they go places that you didn't expec...
ZOE KAZAN In late 2001, I contributed a short story called 'Castaways' to an anthology called 'In ...
BRIAN KEENE whose work has made a significant contribution to the discipline of the short story as an art form.
ANN BEATTIE Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard,...
ERIC BROWN Here goes a very short story about three friends , time space and thought, as the time travelled spa...
SIDDHARTH DUBEY I'm not freakishly short. I had, on my show, used shortness as a joke subject; it didn't rea...
DICK CAVETT I don't think I prefer writing for one age group above another. I am just as pleased with a stor...
MARGARET MAHY When I first started in the industry back home in Australia at 18, there was a lot of push and shove...
RUBY ROSE I didn't work for Jimmy Carter all those years to go to cocktail parties. I was there as a polit...
HAMILTON JORDAN Before I started to make films, I didn't give much thought to the way the characters were physic...
ETGAR KERET There is a sort of genre of optimistic science fiction that I like, and I don't think there is e...
PETER THIEL I don't think we treat people very well in the media, both as customers - and I call them custom...
MIKE BARNICLE I usually grow sick of my short-story characters and think, 'I never want to see you again.'
LORRIE MOORE I've got a few ideas," (Amy) admitted. "But I don't know where we're going in the long term. I mean ...
RICK RIORDAN A girl didn't get an athletic scholarship until the fall of 1972 for the very first time.
BILLIE JEAN KING I didn't want to be short. I've tried to pretend that being a short guy didn't matter. I...
MICKEY ROONEY A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a f...
LORRIE MOORE I'm used to very low-budget situations. In 'The Exploding Girl,' we were literally chang...
ZOE KAZAN When a speaker says, "Well, to make a long story short," it's too late
DON HEROLD There really isn't a story that you can't tell inside of it. It's very much a clearingho...
AARON SORKIN The story was such that I couldn't make a graceful ending and then make a graceful new beginning...
JACK VANCE I think we've broken story after story that the rest of the media refused to break even when the...
DAVID TALBOT Why ruin my sister's birthday simply because the entire planet was going to hell in a hand basket?
T.C. BOYLE While there may not be a book in every one of us, there is so often a damned good short story.
JEFFREY ARCHER I had written a story. I wrote the story out of some desperation, really, and I didn't know I wa...
DEBORAH EISENBERG When I got to law school, I didn't do very well. To put it mildly, I didn't do very well. I,...
DAN PINK 'Castaways' was a play on what if a reality show like 'Survivor' was unknowingly set...
BRIAN KEENE When I was in school, I was very involved with a lot of things. I was very very active. I couldn'...
FAITH FORD 'Emily Rose' was based on a real story, and the real girl died, and there were surviving mem...
SCOTT DERRICKSON 'A Child Called It' was a story about resilience, it was never about boo hoo hoo, it was abo...
DAVE PELZER Alas, I think I am becoming a god.
TITUS Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name.
LUCAN I have a wife, I have sons: all of them hostages given to fate.
LUCAN I actually always had short hair as a kid, and it's really liberating. I recommend it. It's ...
FELICITY JONES
More Paolo Bacigalupi
The loneliest Chinese man I ever met lived halfway up the Three Gorges, in Sichuan Province.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I'm definitely writing my fears. It's almost therapeutic to at least voice a terror, to say,...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI As an author, you're really grateful for the people who are supporting you, but on some other le...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Teens want to read something that isn't a lie; we adults wish we could put our heads under the b...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I think that we live in a highly specialized, technologically advanced society. Highly developed soc...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I used to work for a newspaper that covered local resource issues, and my coworkers and friends were...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Science fiction has these obsessions with certain sciences - large scale engineering, neuroscience.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I am interested in agricultural corporations and how they function. The idea that they own the genet...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I'm less crazy and unhappy when I'm writing.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidd...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I suspect that young adults crave stories of broken futures because they themselves are uneasily awa...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I started really thinking a lot about where does a country go when we stop being able to speak to ea...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I'm interested in how we react when we're heavily pressed. When we're vulnerable and our...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI When we live the 21st-century good life, almost every aspect of it is predicated on not looking at t...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I think inherently, a little bit, I'm a bit of a pleaser, and I want people to like me and be ni...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I'm really interested in how conflicts arise and how they reach points of no return. I'm no ...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Fiction is optimistic or unrealistic enough to demand that there should be a meaningful narrative.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Businesses that decide to be reality based and identify where they're vulnerable to climate impa...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I'm not proud of it, but I'm a great liar when I travel. I smile and lie, and things are smo...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Maybe storytelling belongs in audio - a short story is the length of a commute. That can be a sacred...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conve...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI By nature I'm sort of an introvert.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI When we talk about dystopias, especially in young adult fiction, a lot of them are essentially scien...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Economies are embedded inside ecosystems. Companies dependent on tourism, for example, are affected ...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI A wise human would have an understanding of the supply chain and how the pieces fit together. But it...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simulta...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Sometimes when we label something dystopian fiction, I feel like we're trying very hard not to u...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI For a second, Americans could still feel like big swinging dicks. Solidarity, baby.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI When I think about myself as a writer, for sure I am a science fiction writer. The tools of extrapol...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Desperate people did desperate things, became avatars of unexpected tragedy.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Or maybe there never were any rules. Maybe all we have are habits. Things we do without even knowing...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI I'm a chess piece. A pawn,' she said. 'I can be sacrificed, but I cannot be captured. To be captured...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI The Drowned Cities hadn’t always been broken. People broke it. First they called people traitors a...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Pure data. You don’t believe data—you test data.” He grimaced. “If I could put my finger on ...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI The idea made Mahlia’s chest tighten. It was her own fantasy, the secret one she sometimes curled ...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Her father would return from China. He’d come back with all his soldiers. He’d pick her up in hi...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI The more I write stories for young people, and the more young readers I meet, the more I'm struck by...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Crew up, Nailer!" Lucky Girl shouted. "You think I'm going to pull your ass up here like a damn swan...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, t...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Tool wondered if the girl was going mad. It happened to people. Sometimes they saw too much and thei...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Debts are a heavy burden. Throw them off, and you walk free.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Doctors described Jonah as having poor impulse control, which basically meant that Jonah's entire wo...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Politics is ugly. Never doubt what small men will do for great power.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI Save your shaming for the girl, Doctor. If I cared for human approval, I would have been dead long a...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI She’d survived the Drowned Cities because she wasn’t anything like Mouse. When the bullets start...
PAOLO BACIGALUPI The thing is, even though you think a lot about your movie, and there's a lot of preparation beh...
PAOLO SORRENTINO I watch a lot of football.
PAOLO SORRENTINO I do read a lot. I read more than I watch movies.
PAOLO SORRENTINO Rome is a city I love very much. I have lived there since I was a child.
PAOLO SORRENTINO I usually don't say anything to the actors. It works better for me because when they come to the...
PAOLO SORRENTINO I have learned that I will not pay any attention to anything people say about my movies, because peo...
PAOLO SORRENTINO What I'm interested in is human beings alone.
PAOLO SORRENTINO There are contemporary artists that I hate with all my heart. These are provocateurs that are withou...
PAOLO SORRENTINO I hibernate. I hibernate until the next project takes shape in my mind.
PAOLO SORRENTINO The fear of old age is something that one feels when they're younger. Once you get to being old,...
PAOLO SORRENTINO Rome is a city where in every corner you have a reminder of the sacred world. That's why I have ...
PAOLO SORRENTINO Going around Rome, you can find beauty because, quite simply, Rome is very beautiful. But the beauty...
PAOLO SORRENTINO I don't use Twitter. I'm a serious person.
PAOLO SORRENTINO Wasting time is something that people do or feel all over the world, not just in Italy.
PAOLO SORRENTINO What I find compelling is the moment in which people realize, with suffering and pain, that in the p...
PAOLO SORRENTINO The way I work with my cinematographer is not based on general principles, but the ideas are trigger...
PAOLO SORRENTINO There's one thing that I like about Rome that was stated by Napoleon: that from sublime to pathe...
PAOLO SORRENTINO I think cinema has this beautiful component. It's a universal language.
PAOLO SORRENTINO Responding to terrorism inevitably implies military consequences. This may shock some people, but th...
PAOLO GENTILONI I know that many in Germany think we have a merry financial policy over here.
PAOLO GENTILONI If necessary, Italy is prepared to fight against Islamic State in Libya because the Italian governme...
PAOLO GENTILONI I want to say very clearly that the government... is ready to intervene in order to guarantee the st...
PAOLO GENTILONI Italy has no colonial past in Iran.
PAOLO GENTILONI I am not in a position to be accurate on news analysis. But what I firmly believe is that Iranian Pr...
PAOLO GENTILONI I'm aware of the urgency to give Italy a government in the fullness of its powers, to reassure t...
PAOLO GENTILONI The migratory phenomenon exists, and Europe will have to face it together. The only alternative is a...
PAOLO GENTILONI On immigration, Europe is in danger of displaying the worst of itself: selfishness, haphazard decisi...
PAOLO GENTILONI Europe - with hundreds of millions of people - can accept hundreds of thousands of migrants.
PAOLO GENTILONI If it is true that there is an origin of language and if it is true that the origin of language is o...
PAOLO BARTOLONI You can fall ill with just a memory.
PAOLO GIORDANO Feeling special is the worst kind of cage a person can build for himself.
PAOLO GIORDANO Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.
PAOLO GIORDANO All opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don't have to come up with anything new, there's...
PAOLO GIORDANO The love of those we don't love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.
PAOLO GIORDANO He felt a furious sense of powerlessness, because he played no part in Alice's life, but by god she ...
PAOLO GIORDANO She hadn't chosen him over all the others. The truth was that she hadn't even thought about anyone e...
PAOLO GIORDANO Instead of preaching the importance of happiness, be happy and people will follow your example.
PAOLO COELHO Such a tiny difference necessitates a scrupulous checking of the counting.
PAOLO BONAIUTI All those who are using Venice for their own interests must make a contribution to preserve the myth...
PAOLO COSTA They weren't smiling and were looking in opposite directions, but it was as if their bodies flowed s...
PAOLO GIORDANO They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating ar...
PAOLO GIORDANO Entrambi respirarono un po' di quell'affetto che ancora resisteva tra di loro, diluito
lungo ce...
PAOLO GIORDANO Neither side reached 50 percent (in the lower house) and the margin is under 25,000 votes. Such a ti...
PAOLO BONAIUTI Here it comes, in time for the elections, the voting statement of the Milan prosecutors' office.
PAOLO BONAIUTI The electoral campaign has begun.
PAOLO BONAIUTI Here it comes, right in time for the election, the vote of the Milan prosecutors' office.
PAOLO BONAIUTI Seeing as there's such a narrow gap between the two we demand that a scrupulous verification of the ...
PAOLO BONAIUTI Such a narrow difference demands that there be a careful verification of the vote count.
PAOLO BONAIUTI She was tired, with that tiredness that only emptiness brings.
PAOLO GIORDANO I do well with peoples' parents, but I've certainly had friends who were not. One of my best...
CONNOR PAOLO Where'd the days go, when all we did was play? And the stress that we were under wasn't stress at al...
PAOLO NUTINI I think it's easier to identify with guys who are just trying to make a living and working day t...
CONNOR PAOLO I thought the long summer holidays would have helped me but instead when I started to train I felt w...
PAOLO MALDINI Life's temptations have the purpose of putting our spiritual integrity to the test. To yield to them...
PAOLO MAURENSIG What the hell are those?" Zach pushed at my foot with his finger.
"My boots."
...
THERESA PAOLO If only there was mouthwash for the brain. Brain wash. They could make a fortune on that stuff.
THERESA PAOLO ALHEMICAR
PAOLO KOELJO Soms krijg ik de indruk dat wij jonge mensen, die in het domein van strikte coherentie zijn opgevoed...
PAOLO GIORDANO He could leave as early as tomorrow. This is proof that the European anti- terrorism laws work.
PAOLO IORIO People think that what I want is to get objects back, but I'm not a credit card recovery agency; I p...
PAOLO FERRI Death does determine life. Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not go...
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI I didn't think it would be this great. I didn't believe we could control the match in that way,
PAOLO DI CANIO We will try and get the fans on our side,
PAOLO DI CANIO It was a political sentence, it was an unjust decision. My gesture has nothing to do with political ...
PAOLO DI CANIO I will avoid certain situations, but I will continue my battles, without second thoughts and with ev...
PAOLO DI CANIO But I will continue my battle for liberty in other ways, with he help of the lawyers who assist me.
PAOLO DI CANIO I will always salute that way because it gives me a sense of belonging to my people.
PAOLO DI CANIO The man who comes to take care of my piranhas told me that if I left West Ham he would kill all my f...
PAOLO DI CANIO It’s not Love. But what fault is it of mine
if my affections do not become
Love? Very mu...
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI I am a fascist, not a racist.
PAOLO DI CANIO I am fascist, not racist. I do the Roman (fascist) salute to greet our supporters and those who shar...
PAOLO DI CANIO For to a boy it can seem
that he shall never have what he alone
has never had.
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI Total avoidance of alcohol, although optimum for cancer control, cannot be recommended in terms of b...
DR PAOLO BOFFETTA Given the linear dose-response relation between alcohol intake and risk of cancer, control of heavy ...
DR PAOLO BOFFETTA Alcohol is probably the main factor responsible for increased risk of head and neck cancer recorded ...
DR PAOLO BOFFETTA The most recent version of the European code against cancer recommends keeping daily consumption to ...
DR PAOLO BOFFETTA Alcohol is underestimated as a cause of cancer in many parts of the world.
DR PAOLO BOFFETTA Total avoidance of alcohol, although optimum for cancer control, cannot be recommended in terms of b...
DR. PAOLO BOFFETTA Given the linear dose-response relation between alcohol intake and risk of cancer, control of heavy ...
DR. PAOLO BOFFETTA Alcohol is probably the main factor responsible for increased risk of head and neck cancer recorded ...
DR. PAOLO BOFFETTA The most recent version of the European code against cancer recommends keeping daily consumption to ...
DR. PAOLO BOFFETTA Alcohol is underestimated as a cause of cancer in many parts of the world.
DR. PAOLO BOFFETTA Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is sus...
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI Lo sapevi, peccare non significa fare il male: non fare il bene, questo significa peccare.
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI T’insegneranno a non splendere. E tu splendi, invece.
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI I expect similar concept to pop up and the market will finally take off, probably sometime in 2005-2...
PIER PAOLO MUCELLI