I have a lot of theories about the beneficial effects of fiction, but I'm always trying to get away from them a… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
[Reading Swing Time] made me a feel a little bit like when I used to read David [Foster] Wallace. Like, "I can't… — 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
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
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
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
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 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
Ralph Kramden, as played by Jackie Gleason, was this big bumbling New York City bus driver who was kind of mean and… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and… — 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
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
There was one sequence of days [making Lincoln in the Bardo] when I had halfway decided to use the historical nuggets, but… — 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
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
The weird thing was that I went to Trump rallies thinking I was going to run into militant, right wing, racist people… — 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 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
I really wanted to be allowed to the [writer's] table. So it makes me happy to be at the table. It sounds… — 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
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
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
If I go to the coffee shop and have a nice interaction with the barista, I don't know what that does for… — 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
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
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
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 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
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
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
![“[Reading Swing Time] made me a feel a little bit like when I used to read David [Foster] Wallace. Like, "I can't play that game. I wish I could, but I can't do it."” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/3c0/george-saunders-317_bits_reading-swing-time-made-me-a-feel-a-litt_3144845.jpg)
![“There was one sequence of days [making Lincoln in the Bardo] when I had halfway decided to use the historical nuggets, but I wasn't quite sure it would work. I'd be in my room for six or seven hours, cutting up bits of paper with quotes and arranging them on the floor, with this little voice in my…” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e44/george-saunders-317_arranging_there-was-one-sequence-of-days-making-li_3016056.jpg)
![“I really wanted to be allowed to the [writer's] table. So it makes me happy to be at the table. It sounds a little shallow, but if I imagine the shadow life, where I didn't get that chance, and all the ways my negative inclinations would have bloomed if I hadn't gotten the attention, but also the…” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/82e/george-saunders-317_attention_i-really-wanted-to-be-allowed-to-the-wri_2675640.jpg)
