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Our first responsibility in all things is to preserve our goodness of heart – then and only then act.

George Saunders

Even when the faith goes away, there’s that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that’s kind of where art came in, after that.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Art Kind Space
When we talk about adversity, this is the moment when character really gets tested. When things aren’t going the way you want and you can’t see anyway that they’re going to go the way you want. That’s kind of when those old virtues really become valuable and vulnerable also.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Adversity Character Want
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
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
Nostalgia is, ‘Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?’
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Hey Nostalgia Remember
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
America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamourous reasonable voice.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

America Nuts Voice
Whatever happens when we die, it would be really weird if it was what we had expected. Even if you were a lifelong Christian believer, it would be kind of weird if there actually were pearly gates.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Christian Kind Process Writer
I’m not a natural criticizer – I prefer to like and praise and so on.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Critizixe Natural Praise
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Birthday Drama Rain
I always cheerfully say, “Well, you know, the species is adapting, and whatever it needs to do, it’ll do,” but I do think it’s maybe a little bit alarming.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Fun Phone Thinking
I read to make myself feel awake.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Awake Feels Myself
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
One of the ways that we cope with anxiety is by over planning and over controlling. If we know where it’s going to, we can just relax and do it.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Anxiety Relax Stories
One way or the other; whether you get it or don’t get it, there’s a cost. That’s just basic responsibility, to admit that there’s a cost. And the bad karma is when you pretend that the thing is free.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Free One Responsinbty Thing Time
I’m fascinated with actors, and I’ve never quite understood the process.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Actors Never Quit Process

Our first responsibility in all things is to preserve our goodness of heart – then and only then act.

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Our first responsibility in all things is to preserve our goodness of heart – then and only then act.

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