black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I often wonder if there are certain areas of real life that are roped off, with a sign saying, “Art, don’t come in here.” But that’s maybe a deeper question.

George Saunders

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
The one thing about A Christmas Carol that always bothers me is that Cratchit is so sweet and perfect. He’s like an Ivy League kid who just is labeled “poor.” He doesn’t have any bad habits. He’s never cranky with his kids.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Kids League Sports Sweet
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
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
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
Goodbye. I’m leaving because I’m bored.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Bored Goodbye Leaving
I have nothing. My model is I have nothing figured out, and I’m starting with some little nugget and hoping that it will talk back to me enough to let it grow.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Enough Littles Nuggets
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
I know what it feels like to be in that middle and lower-middle class, and feel like the culture is passing you by; it translates into a great sense of personal frustration that can then morph into political frustration.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Class Frustration Political
It seems to me that there are certain thoughts and vignettes and attitudes that I have always had the desire to represent.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Attitude Desire Vignettes
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
The other thing that’s useful for me is this notion of the absolute versus the relative:if we walk out and it’s a beautiful morning, it’s only a beautiful morning because we don’t have a broken leg or hemorrhoids or something.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Beautiful Broken Morning
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
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
Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we’re someone else, disrupting the delusion that we’re permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we’re saved!) other people are real again, and we’re fond of them.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Permanent Prayer Reading Real Suddenly
With nonfiction, I go in trying to be really honest about what my preconceptions are.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Honest Nonfiction Trying

I often wonder if there are certain areas of real life that are roped off, with a sign saying, “Art, don’t come in here.” But that’s maybe a deeper question.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I often wonder if there are certain areas of real life that are roped off, with a sign saying, “Art, don’t come in here.” But that’s maybe a deeper question.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More George Saunders Quotes