Our first responsibility in all things is to preserve our goodness of heart – then and only then act.
GEORGE SAUNDERSMy go-to default is to try to be nice, which I feel does less harm in the long run than trying to be, say, assertive. If I am nice and maybe too passive, I find that easier to live with.
More George Saunders Quotes
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…smile first, then speak.
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When you’re embarking on a piece of writing, the anxiety is just too much, especially when you’re young and you’re trying to figure out if this is your thing or not. You feel like, “if I don’t write a good story, I gotta get going to law school!”
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Compassion doesn’t have to be weak or enabling; it can also be quite bold.
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When we talk about adversity, this is the moment when character really gets tested. When things aren’t going the way you want and you can’t see anyway that they’re going to go the way you want. That’s kind of when those old virtues really become valuable and vulnerable also.
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And I have finally realized that, you know, it’s not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations. It could be that it would take me 12 more books at six years each to get it – which means I would have to live to be 126. Which I fully intend to do, of course.
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All traditions are also full of meanness for the sake of meanness.
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Anyone can be shamed, but feeling guilt requires empathy within.
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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.
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You can say you’re a liberal and everybody laughs and it’s a good time.
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Goodbye. I am leaving because I am bored.
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The artist’s job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery. To intuit it, and recognize that the story-germ has some inherent mystery in it, and sort of midwife that mystery into the story in such a way that it isn’t damaged in the process, and may even get heightened or refined.
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The most hopeful thing in the stories, I hope, is wit. I make it up. If I make up a world in which we’re ruled by big talking turds, it doesn’t mean that we are. So you shouldn’t feel depressed.
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I’m turning 58, and you get that kind of weird, old-guy feeling of you don’t have an infinite number of years left and if there’s anything you want to say or represent, it’s time to try it.
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There comes that phase in life when, tired of losing, you decide to stop losing, then continue losing. Then you decide to really stop losing, and continue losing. The losing goes on and on so long you begin to watch with curiosity, wondering how low you can go.
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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