For me, the game would be to assume a very intelligent reader who can extrapolate a lot from a little. And that's… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
In a story, for example, you'll start off with a character who is a little bit of a cartoon. That's not satisfying… — 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 have been married to my wife, Paula, for 25 years. We have wonderful kids. Things are - it's been a really… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I'm a big lover of America. I love the people, but also the weird berms, the strange little high schools tucked away… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Writing a story I am just trying to find some little interesting thing to start out with: something small, even trivial. Preferably… — 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
I have nothing. My model is I have nothing figured out, and I'm starting with some little nugget and hoping that it… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
A sort of fearlessness - the notion that a person could be comfortable with (even interested in) whatever arises. I sure can't… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
It is technically very hard to show positive manifestations. But I can look back at the way I thought and felt even… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I don't think much new ever happens. Most of us spend our days the same way people spent their days in the… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Twitter is a deliberate abstention. Somehow I hate the idea of there always being, in the back of my mind, this little… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
When I'm not writing, I tend to get depressed and a little bit surly. And then when I'm writing, suddenly I feel… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I started out in engineering. I was a geophysical engineer. Throughout the course of my life I've done a lot of strange… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think about how I conceptualize the audience. The trick is that they've got to be smarter and more worldly than me.… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Just through the process of trying to make the living and the dead feel real, all these little benefits came out. And… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I'm very happy - if I can do even a little bit of work to get the short story out more, I'm… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
So here's something I know to be true, although it's a little corny, and I don't quite know what to do with… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I have this tendency to take a little bit of questionable knowledge and riff on it. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The way I understood purgatory - and maybe you've got a different version - but in Chicago in the '70s, the idea… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I haven't written a novel or something that long, because I really am improvising all along and the story is growing new… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I don't like that new age posture where you kind of tilt your head. I don't like that posture right now. I… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
It's a little like packing for a trip. First you lay out everything that might possibly be useful, with no thought about… — 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
