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I see that being looked at askance as a form of elitism now, which is really scary.

George Saunders

When you talk about a reader being emotionally moved, a feeling of empathy, I think that comes out of that line-by-line respect for reader. That’s actually where it all comes from.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Empathy Feelings Thinking
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Book Creating Expectations
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
Every step was a victory. He had to remember that.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Remember Steps Victory
I think about how I conceptualize the audience. The trick is that they’ve got to be smarter and more worldly than me. So as I’m revising, I’m keeping that in mind. I cannot condescend, even a little bit. Every single choice that I make is motivated by that.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Choices Mind Thinking
Social media sometimes feels like a vehicle for one-dimensional sniping, more than true criticism.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Criticism Media Sniping
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
I started out in engineering. I was a geophysical engineer. Throughout the course of my life I’ve done a lot of strange jobs, and the effect has been to make me think a little more skeptically about our capitalist society.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Engineering Jobs Thinking
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
I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it’s a nice way to neutralize that polarization.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Desire Nice Thinking
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

People Survival Watches
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
You can say you’re a liberal and everybody laughs and it’s a good time.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Good Laughing Times
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
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
My heart goes out to him. Sort of. Because empathy depends on how you’ve spent your day.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Empathy Heart

I see that being looked at askance as a form of elitism now, which is really scary.

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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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Popular Authors

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