It's not fiction's job to be photographically representative of reality. If I want to make a fictional world where there's no kindness,… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
As a young kid I assumed that everybody was sort of on the same wavelength as I was and then I found… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
That's one of the reasons I take a lot of consolation in fiction. You have years to work on it. I think… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Fiction is open to whoever comes in the door, as long as you come in energetically. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The one thing fiction and non-fiction writing have in common for me is that sense of trying to get the sentences to… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
So much of what I am doing in my fiction is just trying to get into interesting places in terms of language… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I love the idea that more people would read short fiction. I think it's such a humanizing form. It softens the boundaries… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think if someone could demonstrate to me that fiction did no good, I would still do it, because I think it… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
When somebody you've known for 20 years, and with whom you have a full context, winks at you or whatever, it can… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
When I think about what fiction does morally, I'm happier thinking of a person full of multiplicities - sort of fragmented. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think that fiction has a part to play in urging us, as a species, toward compassion, — George Saunders Copy Share Image
With fiction, and also with nonfiction that you can take your time doing, you have a much better chance of reaching across… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I was thinking about the legacy of ghosts in fiction, and specifically the moral power of those Dickensian ghosts. Because a ghost… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
For me, the fiction writer's job is to take the small, stupid process of learning to use an iPhone - and suddenly… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
It's funny with fiction - once you cut something, it hasn't happened anymore. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Sometimes I think fiction exists to model the way God might think of us, if God had the time and inclination to… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“Fiction is an urgent business. It is the Dying Us telling stories to the Dying Us, trying to crack the nonsense in… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I watched a documentary about the immigrant crisis around the world. And it does make me blush at all the times I've… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences -… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Success is like a mountain in front of you that keeps growing. If you're not careful, it will take up your whole life. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“Wow wow wow is all I can say! Remember how I always buy lunchtime Scratch-Off ticket? Have I said? Maybe did not say? Well,… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“None of it was real; nothing was real. Everything was real; inconceivably real, infinitely dear. These and all things started as nothing, latent within… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“We must see God not as a Him (some linear rewarding fellow) but an IT, a great beast beyond our understanding, who wants something… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please,… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
In my case, when I am trying to be "kind" I often default in a sort of toothless loving-all stance that is, actually, not… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Whatever your supposed politics are - left, right - if you put it in a human connection, most people will rise to the occasion… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“A Clinton staffer tells me his theory. Think about Frank Sinatra, he says: born to sing. Think about Willie Mays: born to play ball.… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“You were torturing a cat," she says. "With a freaking prod." "A prod I built myself in metal shop," he says. "But of course… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“Rachel got up and did this happy little shuffle, like she was some cheerful farmer chick who'd just stepped outside to find the hick… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
