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
The main thing a childhood in the Church did for me, I think, was set up the universe as a moral system.… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think the wave of social media rejection is coming. I think there will be a big reaction against it. It's just… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think the biggest single issue is income inequity and what this is doing to the good old "American dream." This and… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I sometimes imagine a great writer as a sort of God-surrogate: the writer is doing his or her human-best to emulate what… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think each writer has to seek her most energetic prose style. She has to find a way to write so that… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
We all think we know what happens after death. But maybe it's going to be not only weird but also dorky and… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I came away believing and really deeply troubled by is the extent to which you can have two well-intentioned people talking in… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
We have to move toward specificity, intelligence, facts, proof, and mutual affection. What I think people have to do now is be… — 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
One lesson I learned the hard way, early in my career, was that if I tried to write to be smart or… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
As for "toothy kindness" - I think all traditions are full of this sort of tough kindness. If someone is on a… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue - having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think the trick of being a writer is to basically put your cards out there all the time and be willing… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Every writer has to find the thing to keep her eye on about which she has strong opinions. That's of course deeply… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I'm not thinking much about overall themes or preoccupations or anything like that. Instead I'm just trusting that, if I'm working hard,… — 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
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
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
I think that feels like it to me. I mean whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I was a big and un-ironic fan of Dear Abby when I was a kid in Chicago. I think I sort of… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think this is the other big issue that is not going away: Do we really believe that bit in the Constitution… — 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
I think we need leadership that can gently and with affection remind us of what we Americans mostly agree upon: civility, kindness,… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
My mind has an obsessive, neurotic quality, but I also have a very hard work ethic. I know that a lot of… — 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
