Every writer knows that when you're imitating somebody - you know, you're sounding like Faulkner - you're doing pretty good, but your… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
While I'm doing [writing], I don't feel it.I don't think that's a failing. I think it's just a feature. Like, a feature… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I don't really do much social media. I just don't like it that much. I've trained myself to write very slowly for… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think the path for a young writer might be one that says, "I have to accept myself, this is what I… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Whatever you love, that will be an influence. It just will. So in effect the young writer's job is: go out and… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I think that's one of the maybe under-discussed aspects of process - the difference between a good writing day and a bad… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
There's a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of… — 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
“The writer,' said Donald Barthelme, 'is one who, embarking upon a task, does not know what to do.' In this mode of… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I guess: People who are comfortable enough with reality to allow other sorts of realities and other mindsets to just be, and… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
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 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
“But hereby resolve to write in this book at least twenty minutes a night. (If discouraged, just think of how much will… — 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
You don't want to spend your life writing about stuff that doesn't matter. You want to try to pull out of the… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
You didn't plan to write a story; it just happened. Well, it could be argued that the next thing you should do… — 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
“My sense is that if you go far enough in any stylistic direction, you can make a beautiful and complex representation of… — 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
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
“I began to understand art as a kind of black box the reader enters. He enters in one state of mind and… — 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
Whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that it all has a big question mark over it -… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to. — 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
The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
I'm repledging myself to human-scale values. As a fiction writer, the best data comes through the senses and is then processed through… — 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
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
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
And I have finally realized that, you know, it's not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations. It could… — 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 used to joke about this but I've recently realized that I really believe it: I spent many years training myself to… — 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
If a writer understands his work as something that originates with him but then, with any luck, gets away from him, then… — George Saunders Copy Share Image
My idea about collections is that you write as hard as you can for some period and what you're really doing during… — 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
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
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
“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
“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
“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
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
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
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
“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
We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish. — George Saunders Copy Share
“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
“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
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
What good the prophet in the wilderness may do is incremental and personal. It's good for us to hear someone speak the irrational truth.… — George Saunders Copy Share
We're in the transition between birth and death. But the one that people often know about is the transition between the moment of death… — George Saunders Copy Share
You don't want to be that parent - the one who dresses his kid in a cloth sack when all the other kids are… — George Saunders Copy Share
![“While I'm doing [writing], I don't feel it.I don't think that's a failing. I think it's just a feature. Like, a feature of oneself.” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/846/george-saunders-317_failing_while-i-m-doing-writing-i-don-t-feel-it_302755.jpg)
![“I guess: People who are comfortable enough with reality to allow other sorts of realities and other mindsets to just be, and then to regard these with real interest and joy [and the joy appears in the prose quality itself].” quote by George Saunders](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/f7b/george-saunders-317_comfortable_i-guess-people-who-are-comfortable-enoug_2220701.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/i/607/george-saunders-317_abraham_i-ve-been-reading-about-and-writing-abou_3049163.jpg)
