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
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The writer, in order to proceed, is theoretically trying to predict where his complex skein of language and image has left his… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I know this will sound naïve, but I often wonder what America would be like if our national ethos was simply to… — 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'm trying to read/edit my story as if I have no existing knowledge of the story, no investment in it, no sense… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
If you start with the idea that you are going to be writing about a night in a graveyard, and that there… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
A work of art is something produced by a person, but is not that person — it is of her, but is… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
It's one thing to be a perfectionist when you're alone, but when you're trying to make it work in an ensemble that's… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
If you have a friend, what's the best way you can experience her beauty? It's to really accept her. She's weird in… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I don't know how you feel, but I feel like writing, clarity of thought, and truth have been validated because we see… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I've seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
When you're embarking on a piece of writing, the anxiety is just too much, especially when you're young and you're trying to… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
The writer has to make pleasure for the reader - which, I think, is done by taking one's character's seriously and taking… — 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
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
Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I've also found that trying to be active with social media changes my moment-to-moment perceptions. Instead of feeling, "What's the deepest version… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I don't tend to work directly from life, except in trying to mimic or match the outlines of its insanity. In other… — 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
If you at least try to do the things that excite you, it will make you a more expansive and present person… — 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
So much of what I am doing in my fiction is just trying to get into interesting places in terms of language… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
In my personal and spiritual life, I reject that. I don't believe in that. I'm always trying to get my mind into… — 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
