black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Your first responsibility is to yourself and to your own goodness of heart.

George Saunders

Positive human action is not only possible, but pervasive; human beings can improve and choose light and so on. And this is all happening.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Action Humans Light
Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Compassion Earth Reason
Monologue is the most honest way to represent human beings.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Honest Monologues Way
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
And the brevity is part of the challenge. I like stories because I get them – I know how to make beauty, or something like beauty, in that mode.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Beauty Make Model Something
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
I think something that I can’t name about our media has made us move away from that kind of specificity and that kind of curiosity.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Moving Names Thinking
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 kind, because it is not truthful.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Be Kind Truthful Trying
Social media sometimes feels like a vehicle for one-dimensional sniping, more than true criticism.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Criticism Media Sniping
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
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Issues Kids Thinking
If you’re going to make an emotional connection with somebody, whether it’s in the story or in the world, there’s a certain amount of self-acceptance that is required.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Acceptance Emotional Self
Nostalgia is, ‘Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?’
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Hey Nostalgia Remember
I would kind of, you know, go stand next to some unlucky guy and say eventually, Hi, I’m George. You know, I’m with The New Yorker. I’m a liberal. I’m somewhat left of Gandhi. Do you want to talk? And, you know, they always did.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Guy Next Want
All traditions are also full of meanness for the sake of meanness.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Meanness Sake Tradition
Humor is what happens when we’re told the truth quicker and more directly than we’re used to.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Happens Used Writing

Your first responsibility is to yourself and to your own goodness of heart.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Your first responsibility is to yourself and to your own goodness of heart.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More George Saunders Quotes