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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

The thing I’ve discovered that is a help is that there isn’t a simple virtue or a simple vice. They’re always connected. If you have Tendency A, that you loathe, you can almost be sure that Tendency B, which you love, is somehow connected to it.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Love Simple Vices
I don’t feel like I have the intelligence to really inhabit a consistently high level of prose.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Feels Levels Prose
…smile first, then speak.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Firsts Smile Speak
To understand any plea for further consideration of a group you don’t know anything about to be some form of, quote, political correctness. These things are bubbling right under us.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Consideration Groups Political
Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Harsh Life Stories
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
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!”
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Good Law School Writing
If you have a friend, what’s the best way you can experience her beauty? It’s to really accept her. She’s weird in this way,
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Judging Thinking Trying
Fiction is open to whoever comes in the door, as long as you come in energetically.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Doors Fiction Energetically Long
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
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
Early on, a story’s meaning and rationale seem pretty obvious, but then, as I write it, I realize that I know the meaning/rationale too well, which means that the reader will also know it – and so things have to be ramped up.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Mean Stories Writing
Goodbye. I’m leaving because I’m bored.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Bored Goodbye Leaving
When somebody you’ve known for 20 years, and with whom you have a full context, winks at you or whatever, it can be huge. I think in a sense what you’re trying to re-create in fiction is that.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Thinking Trying Years
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
Anyone can be shamed, but feeling guilt requires empathy within.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Empathy Feelings Guilt

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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