In my case, when I am trying to be "kind" I often default in a sort of toothless loving-all stance that is,… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I think something that I can't name about our media has made us move away from that kind of specificity and that… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
It seemed to me, in some way, especially when you're looking back at distant historical events, the "Truth" with a capital "T"… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Every writer knows that when you're imitating somebody - you know, you're sounding like Faulkner - you're doing pretty good, but your… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
In a sense my whole life as a writer is trying to find structural ways, or formal ways, to permit that outflowing… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I am always considering the reader. Although this is admittedly kind of odd: Which reader? On what day? In what mood? For… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I always cheerfully say, "Well, you know, the species is adapting, and whatever it needs to do, it'll do," but I do… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I understand what something short should be like. I understand beauty in that form. If I start extending, somehow I kind of… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
There were several points where I would kind of turn to the book and say, "Get thee behind me." I don't think… — 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
The book says [Lincoln in the Bardo],"I really need this sci-fi device of a ghost inhabiting another person." You say okay kind… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
What really interests me, on a deeper level, is how our information is coming to us in some kind of messed up… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Art is not some inessential frippery - it is the nation's means of intelligently regarding itself. To cripple or stigmatize the arts… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think when you see [Donald] Trump in person, my reaction is you kind of enjoy it. It's kind of an enjoyable… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Now I began to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind… — 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
The idea of inclusion has become kind of a stone that we've passed our hand over so many times that it doesn't… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
All storytelling is kind of that - there's a bit of text that you put pressure on that spits out some desire… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I'm not sure I would call it agony but there is a kind of cyclic frustration. You get one story right and… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Even when the faith goes away, there's that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that's kind of where… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I came to writing kind of late. I was an engineer, and the one thing I've learned is that you have to… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
If you really think back to the great writers, there's a lot of happiness in Tolstoy; there's a lot of love, there's… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The internet kind of feels like happiness sometimes, however. It feels like stimulation. — 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