Nothing will turn you into a Civil War buff like five years of reading. Some of the letters that people wrote from… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
“There’s a vast underground network for goodness at work in this world—a web of people who’ve put reading at the center of… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
On a more technical level, a story takes a lot of words. And to generate words and phrases and images and so… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
My mind goes really quickly and I tend to talk really fast, as you've probably heard, I sometimes lose track of my… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we're someone else, disrupting the delusion that we're… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I remember reading The Bluest Eye when I was a young parent, and something opened in me. That's the highest aspiration. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
That underscored this idea that when we're reading a book or writing a book, you're in an act of co-creation. The reader… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
In the moment of reading, the writer comes up to the surface and the reader comes up to the surface and they… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
This - where we are now - is where a culture gets to, when it has chosen, for many years, banality over… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
[In the moment of reading writer and reader] are both briefly their best selves, or at least better selves. A flawed human… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
It blew my mind, reading Swing Time, that I could take any sentence in the book, and it was one of the… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
From the perspective of someone with two grown and wonderful kids, that your instincts as parents are correct: a minute spent reading… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment.… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I've been reading about and writing about the Civil War period and it is so striking that slavery was never made right… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
To me, the process of writing is just reading what I've written and - like running your hand over one of those… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Later, I went one step further, by putting in some invented "historical" bits [into the Lincoln in the Bardo]. And reading those… — 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
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
![“[In the moment of reading writer and reader] are both briefly their best selves, or at least better selves. A flawed human being writes something and 60 years later a reader picks up the book and something in them rises to meet it.” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/538/george-saunders-317_best-self_in-the-moment-of-reading-writer-and-read_1635082.jpg)
![“I've been reading about and writing about the Civil War period and it is so striking that slavery was never made right - [Abraham] Lincoln was killed, Reconstruction came along, and all of that inequity was frozen in place and carried forward rather smugly. So I think the burden is now upon us…” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/607/george-saunders-317_abraham_i-ve-been-reading-about-and-writing-abou_3049163.jpg)
![“Later, I went one step further, by putting in some invented "historical" bits [into the Lincoln in the Bardo]. And reading those alongside the actual historical bits was like looking into a sort of a painful mirror, because "my" parts were so show-offy at first. They stood out because they were so…” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/654/george-saunders-317_bits_later-i-went-one-step-further-by-putting_3138349.jpg)
![“[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)
