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 SAUNDERSThe artist’s job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery.
More George Saunders Quotes
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I’m from a pretty working-class background, and I really worked hard in my life to eradicate those parts of myself that were stupidly trapped in that world.Those of us who come up that way made a series of choices to benefit ourselves and make ourselves more generous and open.
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I always cheerfully say, “Well, you know, the species is adapting, and whatever it needs to do, it’ll do,” but I do think it’s maybe a little bit alarming.
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…There is no end to the making and selling of things there is no end to the making and selling of things there is no end… Man, it occurs to me, is a joyful, buying-and-selling piece of work. I have been wrong, dead wrong, when I’ve decried consumerism.
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I’m very happy – if I can do even a little bit of work to get the short story out more, I’m thrilled.
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“Kindness” can mean a lot of different things. In this case, I felt I had to present his [Donald Trump’s] supporters in as fair a light as possible – many of them hadn’t been interviewed before and that entailed some interviewer-courtesy in the editing and so on.
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Positive human action is not only possible, but pervasive; human beings can improve and choose light and so on. And this is all happening.
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I actually believe that a lot of what people call originality has to do with persistence in the craft.
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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.
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When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.
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I think something that I can’t name about our media has made us move away from that kind of specificity and that kind of curiosity.
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If I can be more efficient, I’m actually being more respectful to the reader, which then implies a greater intimacy with the reader.
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Whatever happens when we die, it would be really weird if it was what we had expected. Even if you were a lifelong Christian believer, it would be kind of weird if there actually were pearly gates.
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I was trained in seismic prospecting. We’d drill a deep hole and put dynamite in the bottom and blow it up remotely, which would give you a cross-sectional picture of the subsurface, which tells you where to drill.
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Even when the faith goes away, there’s that space where you crave something bigger than yourself. For me, that’s kind of where art came in, after that.
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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