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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

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

Firsts Heart Responsibility
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

Art Real Wonder
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
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’m very happy – if I can do even a little bit of work to get the short story out more, I’m thrilled.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Littles Short Stories Story
Chekhov – shall I be blunt? – is the greatest short story writer who ever lived.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Chekhov Stories Story Writers
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
Nostalgia is, ‘Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?’
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Hey Nostalgia Remember
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 not thinking much about overall themes or preoccupations or anything like that. Instead I’m just trusting that, if I’m working hard, various notions and riffs and motifs and so on are very naturally suffusing the stories and the resulting book.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Book Stories Thinking
My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and it just goes under the coach. That I get. Beyond that, I’m a little lost.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Littles Stories Wind
I think kindness is a sort of gateway virtue – having that simple aspiration can get you into deep water very quickly – in a good way.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Kindness Simple Thinking
The book says [Lincoln in the Bardo],”I really need this sci-fi device of a ghost inhabiting another person.” You say okay kind of begrudgingly. So the structure seemed informed by need and efficiency.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Book Kind Needs Structure
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
I’m not a natural criticizer – I prefer to like and praise and so on.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Critizixe Natural Praise
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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