Monologue is the most honest way to represent human beings.
GEORGE SAUNDERSIf you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences – where things turn out better than you thought they would – ought to be in there somewhere, too.
More George Saunders Quotes
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Whenever you talk about writing I think you have to remember that it all has a big question mark over it – every word has a big question mark over it.
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I tend to foster drama via bleakness. If I want the reader to feel sympathy for a character, I cleave the character in half, on his birthday. And then it starts raining. And he’s made of sugar.
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According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.
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Every step was a victory. He had to remember that.
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So, good news/bad news: good news that I’m progressing; bad news that life is short and art is long.
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Chekhov – shall I be blunt? – is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.
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My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and it just goes under the coach. That I get. Beyond that, I’m a little lost.
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Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.
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At times, they’re so Right and I’m so Left, we agree.
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Compassion doesn’t have to be weak or enabling; it can also be quite bold.
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It seems to me that there are certain thoughts and vignettes and attitudes that I have always had the desire to represent.
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I was a big and un-ironic fan of Dear Abby when I was a kid in Chicago. I think I sort of internalized her. So I have this inner Abby: cranky, proper, folksy yet scathing, with a beehive hairdo. But that’s my issue.
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With nonfiction, I go in trying to be really honest about what my preconceptions are.
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So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it.
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Life is short, very short, and what are we doing here if not trying to become more generous and loving?
GEORGE SAUNDERS







