I started really thinking a lot about where does a country go when we stop being able to speak to each other, when a nation stops being able to solve problems because its ideological differences become so deep that it just becomes dysfunctional.

Paolo Bacigalupi

A wise human would have an understanding of the supply chain and how the pieces fit together. But it's against our nature to think about it.

Paolo Bacigalupi

When we talk about dystopias, especially in young adult fiction, a lot of them are essentially science fictional futures. They aren't necessarily tied to the traditional concept of dystopia. And so in that space, my impression is that kids love reading about weird, wild, adventurous places, and dystopia fits that bill.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I was interested in political failure here in the U.S. The way we're failing to work together to solve even our smallest problems, let alone the complex ones.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I don't put a very clear label on my work. If anything, I write science fiction - looking at a moment now, in the present, and then extrapolating outward to think about what the future might look like if this particular trend goes on, or if this particular trend is the most dominant. That's a science fictional tool.

Paolo Bacigalupi

Sometimes when we label something dystopian fiction, I feel like we're trying very hard not to use the words 'science fiction,' because science fiction has those horrible connotations of rocket ships and bodacious babes.

Paolo Bacigalupi

When we live the 21st-century good life, almost every aspect of it is predicated on not looking at the implications of what we're up to. Happiness at this point has a lot to do with not looking, so you don't feel complicit in some vast and awful enterprise.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I think inherently, a little bit, I'm a bit of a pleaser, and I want people to like me and be nice, and to not ruffle feathers and just make everybody happy and stuff. It's a personality flaw.

Paolo Bacigalupi

Maybe storytelling belongs in audio - a short story is the length of a commute. That can be a sacred spot where you have the ear of the reader without having to compete with other media like games or TV.

Paolo Bacigalupi

When somebody keeps telling you, 'This book is amazing,' you sort of have this pleasing instinct to say, 'Oh, let me make you happy again; let me do that trick again.'

Paolo Bacigalupi

I think the fact that we, as writers, don't engage with resource-level questions is a symptom of our society where we just don't know where our stuff comes from.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I'm particularly interested in black swan events: unprecedented surprises that destroy the conventional wisdom about how the world works.

Paolo Bacigalupi

When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I started really thinking a lot about where does a country go when we stop being able to speak to each other, when a nation stops being able to solve problems because its ideological differences become so deep that it just becomes dysfunctional.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I don't know why we choose to reach out to help another person, or why we decide that we can't, and withdraw and try to care only for ourselves, but I'm fascinated by that choice.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I am interested in agricultural corporations and how they function. The idea that they own the genetics of our food supply is a really compelling thing to me.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I suspect that young adults crave stories of broken futures because they themselves are uneasily aware that their world is falling apart.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I say I write extrapolations. I look at data points and ask what the world could look like.

Paolo Bacigalupi

All the definitions people want to put on you in terms of what kind of writer you are come with hidden meanings. If you're writing science fiction, you're writing rocket ships. If you write dystopian fiction, it's inequity where The Man must be fought.

Paolo Bacigalupi

Novelists want to be published and need a publisher to decide to print 20,000 copies. So you need to entertain on some level. I want to reach out and connect.

Paolo Bacigalupi

The young adult category is particularly interesting to me in terms of science fiction and fantasy tropes.

Paolo Bacigalupi