Want Quotes by George Saunders

If you want to be good, all you've got to do is be good.

— George Saunders

I read Rand and thought, "I want to be one of the earth movers, the scientific people who power the world. I…

— George Saunders

I'm turning 58, and you get that kind of weird, old-guy feeling of you don't have an infinite number of years left…

— George Saunders

I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character…

— George Saunders

I feel nervous because I revere [Zadie Smith] so much. I don't want to be stupid. If I say something stupid, just…

— George Saunders

When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world…

— George Saunders

You go to the marketplace and there are seventeen consciousnesses moving in and out. Sometimes you want the same shirt that I…

— George Saunders

If you want to explore a political idea in the highest possible way, you embody it in the personal, because that's something…

— George Saunders

While writing this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], [idea of inclusion] occurred to me, you either believe in the Constitution or you…

— George Saunders

A writer writes what interests him and what he can manage, and what he can make live, as Flannery O'Connor said. So…

— George Saunders

When we talk about adversity, this is the moment when character really gets tested. When things aren't going the way you want…

— George Saunders

One of the ways that we cope with anxiety is by over planning and over controlling. If we know where it's going…

— George Saunders

Now I began to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind…

— George Saunders

You don't want to be that parent - the one who dresses his kid in a cloth sack when all the other…

— George Saunders

What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying.…

— George Saunders

It's not fiction's job to be photographically representative of reality. If I want to make a fictional world where there's no kindness,…

— George Saunders

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

“Did he still want it? Did he still want to live? Yes, yes, oh, God, yes, please. Because, O.K., the thing was—he…

— George Saunders

I would kind of, you know, go stand next to some unlucky guy and say eventually, Hi, I'm George. You know, I'm…

— George Saunders

That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not, "I want to write about a gravedigger." But you're walking along…

— George Saunders

So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try…

— George Saunders

Now, we don't really believe these things - intellectually we know better - but we believe them viscerally, and live by them,…

— George Saunders