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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

I think it was a big revelation to me earlier in my life that people who appear to be evil are actually not. In other words, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “Yuck, yuck, yuck, I’m gonna be evil.”
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Morning People Thinking
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
I actually believe that a lot of what people call originality has to do with persistence in the craft.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Believe People Persistence
The one thing fiction and non-fiction writing have in common for me is that sense of trying to get the sentences to be minimal but at the same time be a little overfull – to encourage them to do a kind of poetic work.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Fiction Overall Same Time Trying Writing
Someone told me once – I mean I said, “Is it ok that I don’t really know what the three-act structure is?” And he said, “It’s basically: Act 1: a guy climbs up a tree; Act 2: people come and throw stuff at him; Act 3: he gets down.”
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Guy Mean People
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
As the writer of this book [Lincoln in the Bardo], what I loved was the feeling of having so many surprises come at the end that I hadn’t really planned or planted.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Book Feelings Surprise
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
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
According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Becoming Graduation Life
When I think about what fiction does morally, I’m happier thinking of a person full of multiplicities – sort of fragmented.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Fiction Fragmented Thinking
I would kind of, you know, go stand next to some unlucky guy and say eventually, Hi, I’m George. You know, I’m with The New Yorker. I’m a liberal. I’m somewhat left of Gandhi. Do you want to talk? And, you know, they always did.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Guy Next Want
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

Jobs Stuff Young Writers
Life is short, very short, and what are we doing here if not trying to become more generous and loving?
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Generous Life Short Trying
Monologue is the most honest way to represent human beings.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Honest Monologues Way
I have finally realized that, you know, it’s not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Aspiration Given Writing

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More George Saunders Quotes