George Saunders Quotes

The story sometimes writes you into a corner.

I think that's one of the maybe under-discussed aspects of process - the difference between a good writing day and a bad one is the quality of the split-second decisions you made.

I think that fiction has a part to play in urging us, as a species, toward compassion.

If you're going to make an emotional connection with somebody, whether it's in the story or in the world, there's a certain amount of self-acceptance that is required.

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.

Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible.

At times, they're so Right and I'm so Left, we agree.

That seems to be the definition of 'novel' for me: a story that hasn't yet discovered a way to be brief.

There might be a different model for a literary community that's quicker, more real-time, and involves more spontaneity.

Back in 1992, I had my first story accepted by 'The New Yorker.'

We all think we know what happens after death. But maybe it's going to be not only weird but also dorky and comic and inconsistent.

Anyone can be shamed, but feeling guilt requires empathy within.

What once were two, are one

She said America was a spoiled child ignorant of grief.

My heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love.

Stay alert. The big moral crossroads in your life may not come labeled as such.

I see that being looked at askance as a form of elitism now, which is really scary.

When I think about what fiction does morally, I'm happier thinking of a person full of multiplicities - sort of fragmented.

I have lunch, flirt with some local grandmothers, undercut my flirting by crotching myself on the corner of a table as I leave. -- "The Great Divider

I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.

Monologues, in some ways, are the most scientific descriptions of consciousness and even of gatherings.

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.

I love the feeling of being on the hunt - the feeling that the story is refusing to be solved in some lesser way and is insisting that you see it on its highest terms.

Positive human action is not only possible, but pervasive; human beings can improve and choose light and so on. And this is all happening.

I've always wanted to write energetic, atypical sentences, i.e., sentences that were not normal or bland.

Fiction is open to whoever comes in the door, as long as you come in energetically.

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.

I have finally realized that, you know, it's not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations.

I feel that there is nothing that can happen to a person that is banal. Everything that happens to us is interesting.

Realism is to fiction what gravity is to walking: a confinement that allows dancing under the right circumstances.

I grew up in Chicago on the South Side, and had a ton of freedom, just did whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. At the risk of sounding dopey, I would say it was blissful.

Every writer knows that when you're imitating somebody - you know, you're sounding like Faulkner - you're doing pretty good, but your life in Hoboken isn't Faulkneresque.

I'm comfortable with anything after the fact.

In fact unrestrained capitalism is quite cruel and the cost is on the individual human, on his or her grace.

One of the inspiring things about Susan Sarandon career is that there's a quality of real fearlessness in it - you seem to be in it for the challenge and the experience.

I'm very happy - if I can do even a little bit of work to get the short story out more, I'm thrilled.

I love the idea that more people would read short fiction. I think it's such a humanizing form. It softens the boundaries between people.

If I can be more efficient, I'm actually being more respectful to the reader, which then implies a greater intimacy with the reader.

As a writer I'm essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at every point, whether to keep going.

I am always considering the reader. Although this is admittedly kind of odd: Which reader? On what day? In what mood? For me, that "reader" is actually just me, if I had never read the story before.

If you want to explore a political idea in the highest possible way, you embody it in the personal, because that's something that no one can deny.

I'm fascinated with actors, and I've never quite understood the process.

For me, the fiction writer's job is to take the small, stupid process of learning to use an iPhone - and suddenly you're the guy who's asking your daughter, "When I go on Facebook, can it see me?"

I don't know about transformation. But scientifically you can say: Well, it doesn't seem to hurt anybody. Personally I've been cheered by books at really critical moments. That much I believe.

I don't really do much social media. I just don't like it that much. I've trained myself to write very slowly for a lot of money so it really galls me to write quickly for free.

Sometimes I just turn on the TV and I'm like, wait a minute, that guy [Donald Trump]? It's incredible that he did all those things and he still won. It's hard to process.

Compassion doesn't have to be weak or enabling; it can also be quite bold.

I've had that my whole career. People were always hedging around the question of: Why are you so dark? What happened to you?

I watched a bunch of kids movies on Christmas. I was kind of joking with our family by asking, "Is anyone allowed to die in a kid's movie anymore?"

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.