black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The artist’s job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery.

George Saunders

In the absolute sense – kind of from the God’s-eye view – God might feel like, “I made this thing that has all of that in it, all the horror and all the beauty.”
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Eye might Views
At times, they’re so Right and I’m so Left, we agree.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Agree Left Right
A culture’s ability to understand the world and itself is critical to its survival. But today we are led into the arena of public debate by seers whose main gift is their ability to compel people to continue to watch them.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

People Survival Watches
Maybe you could even think 100,000 people are inside each human being. And you drop a novel on that person, and a certain number of those sub-people come alive or get reenergized for some finite time.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Numbers People Thinking
You don’t want to be that parent – the one who dresses his kid in a cloth sack when all the other kids are in Armani cloth sacks – especially in a time like ours, when materialism is not only rampant and ascendant but is fast becoming the only game in town.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Games Kids Parent
As the writer of this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], what I loved was the feeling of having so many surprises come at the end that I hadn’t really planned or planted.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Book Feelings Surprise
When you talk about a reader being emotionally moved, a feeling of empathy, I think that comes out of that line-by-line respect for reader. That’s actually where it all comes from.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Empathy Feelings Thinking
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Remember Thinking Writing
I’ve seen time and time again the way that the process of trying to say something dignifies and improves a person.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Process Trying Way
I don’t feel like I have the intelligence to really inhabit a consistently high level of prose.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Feels Levels Prose
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Advice Corny Littles
That’s the only way that I can figure out how to live, is to say, “Well, I don’t know what this adds up to, but I can do the best I can.”
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Add Figures Way
When somebody you’ve known for 20 years, and with whom you have a full context, winks at you or whatever, it can be huge. I think in a sense what you’re trying to re-create in fiction is that.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Thinking Trying Years
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 figure out if this is your thing or not. You feel like, “if I don’t write a good story, I gotta get going to law school!”
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Good Law School Writing
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
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
Chekhov – shall I be blunt? – is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Chekhov Stories Story Writers
One of the things I noticed about the Trump supporters was a lot of projected fear. I can’t tell you how many times a conversation went like this: “We’ve got to stop these immigrants, because it’s terrible.” I’d say, “Okay, what personally have you observed about this?” And there would be basically nothing in that box. And I’d say, “Where’d you get your information?” thinking they were going to say Fox. But they would always say, “Well, I get my information from all kinds of sources.” Fox is kind of center-left to a lot of people now.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Information People Thinking
I love story-writing because I can (more or less, on occasion) actually DO it. That’s really the truth. I like the idea that a story is sort of a site for making cool language effects – a site for celebrating language, and, therefore, the world.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Challenges Ideas Writing
We have to move toward specificity, intelligence, facts, proof, and mutual affection. What I think people have to do now is be very, very assertive about the utter essentiality of intellectual undertakings.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Moving People Thinking
With nonfiction, I go in trying to be really honest about what my preconceptions are.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Honest Nonfiction Trying
My heart goes out to him. Sort of. Because empathy depends on how you’ve spent your day.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Empathy Heart
The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it’s all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the more the book teaches you its internal rules.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Book Firsts Rules Writing
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
I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Air Stories Writing
I think people have come to expect that in artistic representation; that every work of art should be a work of extravagant hope.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Arise Art Future People Satisfy Thinking
I’m from a pretty working-class background, and I really worked hard in my life to eradicate those parts of myself that were stupidly trapped in that world.Those of us who come up that way made a series of choices to benefit ourselves and make ourselves more generous and open.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Benefits Choices Class

The artist’s job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The artist’s job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More George Saunders Quotes