Writing Quotes by George Saunders

Chekhov - shall I be blunt? - is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.

— George Saunders

I'm always nice when I do drugs. But, you know, I'm nicer on the drug called "writing."

— George Saunders

I don't really write beautifully naturally, unlike some people.

— George Saunders

When I write I know that I'm going to have to produce 40 percent more than I need.

— George Saunders

The story sometimes writes you into a corner.

— George Saunders

As a writer I'm essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at…

— George Saunders

I'm always aware of writing around things I can't do, and I've come to think that that's actually what 'style' is -…

— George Saunders

All along, my mantra was: Don't write unless it contributes to the emotion, and do anything you do in service of the…

— George Saunders

In the moment of reading, the writer comes up to the surface and the reader comes up to the surface and they…

— George Saunders

I don't feel like I have the intelligence to really inhabit a consistently high level of prose.

— George Saunders

I have finally realized that, you know, it's not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations.

— George Saunders

The millions or billions of micro decisions that you're going to make, that's what will determine who you are as a writer,…

— George Saunders

The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it's all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the…

— George Saunders

To me, the process of writing is just reading what I've written and - like running your hand over one of those…

— George Saunders

“But hereby resolve to write in this book at least twenty minutes a night. (If discouraged, just think of how much will…

— George Saunders

The writer has to make pleasure for the reader - which, I think, is done by taking one's character's seriously and taking…

— George Saunders

I came away believing and really deeply troubled by is the extent to which you can have two well-intentioned people talking in…

— George Saunders

If I'm writing a story and you're reading it, or vice versa, you took time out of your day to pick up…

— George Saunders

I'm repledging myself to human-scale values. As a fiction writer, the best data comes through the senses and is then processed through…

— George Saunders

That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not, "I want to write about a gravedigger." But you're walking along…

— George Saunders

The writer, in order to proceed, is theoretically trying to predict where his complex skein of language and image has left his…

— George Saunders

If you understand writing as primarily engaging an imaginary reader, well, you've kind of been doing that your whole life. You walk…

— George Saunders

With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process…

— George Saunders

“Even for those thousands of young people who don’t get something out there [in a university writing program], the process is still…

— George Saunders

My theory for nonfiction is that nobody can be free of some kind of conceptions about whatever story they're writing. But if…

— George Saunders

You didn't plan to write a story; it just happened. Well, it could be argued that the next thing you should do…

— George Saunders

You don't want to spend your life writing about stuff that doesn't matter. You want to try to pull out of the…

— George Saunders

There was one sequence of days [making Lincoln in the Bardo] when I had halfway decided to use the historical nuggets, but…

— George Saunders

The only thing I might have noticed [and this is pretty anecdotal] is that there is some tendency to need to be…

— George Saunders

“In the beginning, there’s a blank mind. Then that mind gets an idea in it, and the trouble begins, because the mind…

— George Saunders

“How, then, to proceed? My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, with “P” on this side (“Positive”) and…

— George Saunders

I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.

— George Saunders

As the writer of this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], what I loved was the feeling of having so many surprises come…

— George Saunders

I think each writer has to seek her most energetic prose style. She has to find a way to write so that…

— George Saunders

Even if something within me is ugly, writing is a pretty good place to play with that thing and to begin to…

— George Saunders

I see this quality [real interest and joy] in the work of [Pavel] Chekhov, of course, and [Alexei] Tolstoy and really just…

— George Saunders

As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we…

— George Saunders

I think that's one of the maybe under-discussed aspects of process - the difference between a good writing day and a bad…

— George Saunders

Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment.…

— George Saunders

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't…

— George Saunders