…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.
GEORGE SAUNDERSWe’re in the transition between birth and death. But the one that people often know about is the transition between the moment of death and whatever comes next, so reincarnation or heaven or hell.
More George Saunders Quotes
-
-
I actually believe that a lot of what people call originality has to do with persistence in the craft.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
With nonfiction, I go in trying to be really honest about what my preconceptions are.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
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 -
Maybe you could even think 100,000 people are inside each human being. And you drop a novel on that person, and a certain number of those sub-people come alive or get reenergized for some finite time.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
[Writing] is almost like those boats that sit really low in the water; they look kind of ugly. And then you get one of them up to 80 miles an hour and the hull comes up, and it’s a beautiful thing. I’m okay with that for myself.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
I was a straight arrow, a control freak. I didn’t do drugs or drink, and this was the ’70s. I didn’t like the loss of control. Which isn’t exactly right, because I didn’t know what happened when you did drugs.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
I understand what something short should be like. I understand beauty in that form. If I start extending, somehow I kind of lose my bearings.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
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 -
I’m fascinated with actors, and I’ve never quite understood the process.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
I’m getting anxious, I’m getting more manic. Now, I’m an extreme case because I’m old and I’m overdoing it. But still, it’s really interesting that I can actually feel a change in my neurochemistry from this interaction with the technology.
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
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 -
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 -
Twitter is a deliberate abstention. Somehow I hate the idea of there always being, in the back of my mind, this little voice saying: ‘Oh, I should tweet about this.’
GEORGE SAUNDERS -
We’re in the transition between birth and death. But the one that people often know about is the transition between the moment of death and whatever comes next, so reincarnation or heaven or hell.
GEORGE SAUNDERS