I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.
GEORGE SAUNDERSIf 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.
More George Saunders Quotes
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Nostalgia is, ‘Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?’
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Whole idea is really intriguing to me. If you took snapshots of ourselves throughout the day, the way that our mind is twisting and turning, then at the moment of death, the mind would be twisting and turning in the same way. But the Buddhists say it’s super-sized because there’s no bodily damper on it.
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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.
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My heart goes out to him. Sort of. Because empathy depends on how you’ve spent your day.
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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.
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I’m very happy – if I can do even a little bit of work to get the short story out more, I’m thrilled.
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…There is no end to the making and selling of things there is no end to the making and selling of things there is no end… Man, it occurs to me, is a joyful, buying-and-selling piece of work. I have been wrong, dead wrong, when I’ve decried consumerism.
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If I find myself being too earnest and sentimental and hyperbolic and simplistic, which is definitely a tendency I have, then I bring in this perverse henchman.
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I was a straight arrow, a control freak. I didn’t do drugs or drink, and this was the ’70s. I didn’t like the loss of control. Which isn’t exactly right, because I didn’t know what happened when you did drugs.
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I want something a little more confident and more sure of the values that we’re defending, which are the old ones, love and empathy and patience and tolerance and civility. Not to get into politics or anything.
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For me, when I’m coming up to a place where I have to make somebody up, it’s almost like driving and taking your hands off the wheel.
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I see that being looked at askance as a form of elitism now, which is really scary.
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You can see a whole book as a series of creating an expectation and then delivering a skew on that expectation so it’s not totally satisfied.
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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.
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Whatever you love, that will be an influence. It just will. So in effect the young writer’s job is: go out and find some stuff to love.
GEORGE SAUNDERS