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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.

George Saunders

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George Saunders
Age: 65
Born: 1958
Born: December 2
Essayist
Fantasy Author
Geological Engineer
Geophysicist
Journalist
Novelist
Professor
Prosaist
Short Story Writer
Teacher
Amarillo
Texas
Process
Decisions
Writing
Aspect
Made
Difference
Good
Second
Think
Differences
Discussed
Thinking
Decision
Split
Maybe
Splits
Quality
Aspects

More quotes by George Saunders

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I think fiction isn't so good at being for or against things in general - the rhetorical argument a short story can make is only actualized by the accretion of particular details, and the specificity of these details renders whatever conclusions the story reaches invalid for wider application.
George Saunders
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All storytelling is kind of that - there's a bit of text that you put pressure on that spits out some desire that a character has and then you follow that. The other part is that every scene raises an expectation in the reader's mind - that's part of its job is to make you look in and be curious.
George Saunders
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It's funny with fiction - once you cut something, it hasn't happened anymore.
George Saunders
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When I think about what fiction does morally, I'm happier thinking of a person full of multiplicities - sort of fragmented.
George Saunders
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It was that impossible thing: happiness that does not wilt to reveal the thin shoots of some new desire rising from within it.
George Saunders
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The traveller must, of course, always be cautious of the overly broad generalisation. But I am an American, and a paucity of data does not stop me from making sweeping, vague, conceptual statements and, if necessary, following these statements up with troops.
George Saunders
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Success is like a mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it... Err in the direction of kindness.
George Saunders
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In real life, when you have an emotional experience, it's never just because of the thing that's been said. There's the backstory. It's like [Ernest] Hemingway's iceberg theory - the current emotional moment is the tip of the iceberg and all of the past is the seven-eighths of the iceberg that's underwater.
George Saunders
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I am trying to remember that things have certainly been crazier in human history and they may get crazier here and now, and [here I am trying to be optimistic] it's even a good thing, to be going through all of this, if only to be reminded that history hasn't stopped - human existence is as fundamentally unmanageable now as it ever was.
George Saunders
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I think the trick of being a writer is to basically put your cards out there all the time and be willing to be as in the dark about what happens next as your reader would be at that time.
George Saunders
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I think that feels like it to me. I mean 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
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The cool parts - the parts that have won Dubai its reputation as 'the Vegas of the Middle East' or 'the Venice of the Middle East' or 'the Disney World of the Middle East, if Disney World were the size of San Francisco and out in a desert' - have been built in the last ten years.
George Saunders
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Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.
George Saunders
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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
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I still believe that capitalism is too harsh and I believe that, even within that, there is a lot of satisfaction and beauty if you happen to be one of the lucky ones, although that doesn't eradicate the reality of the suffering. It's all true at once, kind of humming and sublime.
George Saunders
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A country doesn't need a businessman to run it: it needs a heartful, worldly, compassionate leader.
George Saunders
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That's one of the reasons I take a lot of consolation in fiction. You have years to work on it. I think that allows you to reach for the best part of your reader instead of a lot of the internet stuff, in which you're kind of reaching for the worst or the most shallow part of your reader.
George Saunders
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As a young kid I assumed that everybody was sort of on the same wavelength as I was and then I found out in a lot of small ways that that wasn't the case. It's sort of a mixed blessing. My mind is like a puppy. It goes all over. I guess writing fiction was a way of harnessing that. I could hook a puppy up to a treadmill and get something out of it.
George Saunders
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It is technically very hard to show positive manifestations. But I can look back at the way I thought and felt even as a little kid and there was a lot of wonder there, and openness to the many sides of life.
George Saunders
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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