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I think people have come to expect that in artistic representation; that every work of art should be a work of extravagant hope.

George Saunders

I had an experience a few years ago where I was on a plane in which one of the engines went out. I couldn’t even remember my name. I was just repeating the word no over and over.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Names Remember Years
I want something a little more confident and more sure of the values that we’re defending, which are the old ones, love and empathy and patience and tolerance and civility. Not to get into politics or anything.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Confident Defending Empathy Want
…smile first, then speak.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Firsts Smile Speak
And the brevity is part of the challenge. I like stories because I get them – I know how to make beauty, or something like beauty, in that mode.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Beauty Make Model Something
I heard Zen teacher one time talking about abortion, and he was saying the way that abortion makes bad karma is any time the person involved pretends that there’s not a cost to the choice.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Karma Responsibility Teacher
All along, my mantra was: Don’t write unless it contributes to the emotion, and do anything you do in service of the emotion only.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Contribute Emotion Service Writing
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

Extreme Interesting Neurochemistry
Monologue is the most honest way to represent human beings.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Honest Monologues Way
If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences – where things turn out better than you thought they would – ought to be in there somewhere, too.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Fiction Thinking World
One way or the other; whether you get it or don’t get it, there’s a cost. That’s just basic responsibility, to admit that there’s a cost. And the bad karma is when you pretend that the thing is free.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Free One Responsinbty Thing Time
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Adversity Character Want
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
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

Hate Ideas Voice
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.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Art Kind Space
He was a father. That’s what a father does.Eases the burdens of those he loves. Saves the ones he loves from painful last images that might endure for a lifetime.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Dad Day Ease Fathers
You can say you’re a liberal and everybody laughs and it’s a good time.
GEORGE SAUNDERS

Good Laughing Times

I think people have come to expect that in artistic representation; that every work of art should be a work of extravagant hope.

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I think people have come to expect that in artistic representation; that every work of art should be a work of extravagant hope.

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Popular Authors

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