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I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue – having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly – in a good way.

George Saunders

I see that being looked at askance as a form of elitism now, which is really scary.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Askance Form Really Scary
If 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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Fiction Thinking World
My go-to default is to try to be nice, which I feel does less harm in the long run than trying to be, say, assertive. If I am nice and maybe too passive, I find that easier to live with.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Long Nice Running
Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Compassion Earth Reason
I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue – having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly – in a good way.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Kindness Simple Thinking
I’ve noticed that nowadays I’m doing a lot of stuff on the phone and on the computer, which I usually wouldn’t do earlier. And I can feel my brain being rewired:
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Interesting Phones Technology
I think about how I conceptualize the audience. The trick is that they’ve got to be smarter and more worldly than me. So as I’m revising, I’m keeping that in mind. I cannot condescend, even a little bit. Every single choice that I make is motivated by that.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Choices Mind Thinking
I read Rand and thought, “I want to be one of the earth movers, the scientific people who power the world. I don’t want to be one of these lisping liberal artsy leeches.” So I was working against my actual abilities.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Leeches People World
Compassion doesn’t have to be weak or enabling; it can also be quite bold.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Compassion Enabling Weak
The idea is that what an artist lives through should broaden his notion of what it is possible for a human being to live through, and that new understanding should then get into and expand the work.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Artist Ideas Understanding
My idea about collections is that you write as hard as you can for some period and what you’re really doing during that time is hyper-focusing on the individual pieces – trying to make each one sit up and really do some surprising work.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Ideas Trying Writing
What’s really baffling to me is the way that the technology has risen up to help us become more materialistic.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Helping Technology Way
I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Air Stories Writing
I think that fiction has a part to play in urging us, as a species, toward compassion.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Compassion Play Thinking
As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we pursue specificity.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Fiction God Kindness Life
I do find the values in A Christmas Carol significant. It is important not to be mean and stingy and not to give up love for money.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Giving Important Mean Up

I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue – having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly – in a good way.

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I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue – having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly – in a good way.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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