Quote

We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish.

George Saunders

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

George Saunders
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: December 2
Essayist
Fantasy Author
Geological Engineer
Geophysicist
Journalist
Novelist
Professor
Prosaist
Short Story Writer
Teacher
Amarillo
Texas
Dies
Pontificate
Age
Vanish
Trying
Shrink
Posture
Shrinks
Aspire
Fail
Failing

More quotes by George Saunders

Image
I think the biggest single issue is income inequity and what this is doing to the good old American dream. This and corporatism - this delusional idea that shareholder value outweighs everything else.
George Saunders
Image
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
Image
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.
George Saunders
Image
I try to keep my artistic opinions not so much to myself but on myself.
George Saunders
Image
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.
George Saunders
Image
Realism is to fiction what gravity is to walking: a confinement that allows dancing under the right circumstances.
George Saunders
Image
Sometimes I think fiction exists to model the way God might think of us, if God had the time and inclination to do so.
George Saunders
Image
I'm starting to withdraw from [technology] as much as I can. I don't do much of the social media stuff. Like, if I'm on Facebook, it changes my relation to the real world in a way that makes me feel sick - almost like I've had too much sugar or something.
George Saunders
Image
I don't like that new age posture where you kind of tilt your head. I don't like that posture right now. 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
Image
People who've written about Abraham Lincoln's writing emphasize how logical he was. His writing was a syllogistic tool. He would say, if A, then B, and he would reason through it. His late writing especially is so tight and so beautifully reasoned.
George Saunders
Image
The writer has to make pleasure for the reader - which, I think, is done by taking one's character's seriously and taking one's readers seriously -don't condescend or try to be tricky. Be a friend to your reader - I'd say that's a pretty good first step.
George Saunders
Image
Life is short, very short, and what are we doing here if not trying to become more generous and loving?
George Saunders
Image
Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it... Err in the direction of kindness.
George Saunders
Image
To me, the process of writing is just reading what I've written and - like running your hand over one of those mod glass stovetops to find where the heat is - looking for where the energy is in the prose, then going in the direction of that. It's an exercise in being open to whatever is there.
George Saunders
Image
The artist's job, I think, is to be a conduit for mystery. To intuit it, and recognize that the story-germ has some inherent mystery in it, and sort of midwife that mystery into the story in such a way that it isn't damaged in the process, and may even get heightened or refined.
George Saunders
Image
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
Image
I'm turning 58, and you get that kind of weird, old-guy feeling of you don't have an infinite number of years left and if there's anything you want to say or represent, it's time to try it.
George Saunders
Image
The best thing we can bring to any fight is a calm and compassionate mind.
George Saunders
Image
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
Image
Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.
George Saunders