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Realism is to fiction what gravity is to walking: a confinement that allows dancing under the right circumstances.
George Saunders
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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
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Dancing
Walking
Circumstances
Fiction
Right
Confinement
Realism
Gravity
More quotes by George Saunders
I sometimes imagine a great writer as a sort of God-surrogate: the writer is doing his or her human-best to emulate what God might think of is, if God was inclined to observe some human beings and present their activities in the form of a narrative.
George Saunders
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
Kindness can mean a lot of different things. In this case, I felt I had to present his [Donald Trump's] supporters in as fair a light as possible - many of them hadn't been interviewed before and that entailed some interviewer-courtesy in the editing and so on.
George Saunders
We've got a real problem with social media that we didn't know we were going to have. It's almost like the demons have gotten out of the box.
George Saunders
Err in the direction of kindness.
George Saunders
In fiction, conceptualizing, I've found, produces dull and over-controlled text.
George Saunders
I think this is the other big issue that is not going away: Do we really believe that bit in the Constitution or not? I think we do.
George Saunders
The word 'funny' is a bit like the word 'love' - we don't have enough words to describe the many varieties.
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
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
I think it is time for a new pride in the intellectual life, and a new impatience with people who take pride in ignorance, or somehow use elite to mean person who has taken the time to know and then are eager to dismiss, say, striving, or the notion that improving one's self out of difficult conditions is a noble thing.
George Saunders
Whatever your supposed politics are - left, right - if you put it in a human connection, most people will rise to the occasion and feel the human pain in a way that they might not if it was presented in a more conceptual way.
George Saunders
I attended Catholic school. We received a great education from the nuns. ... Also, guilt. Guilt and a feeling of never being satisfied with what you've done. And a sense that you are inadequate and a big phony. All useful for a writer. I'm always being edited by my inner nun.
George Saunders
Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.
George Saunders
I've found that my first drafts are not so special. But the more I work on them, the better they get. They are more unique and defensible.
George Saunders
What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
George Saunders
If you want to be good, all you've got to do is be good.
George Saunders
I think each writer has to seek her most energetic prose style. She has to find a way to write so that nobody can deny it.
George Saunders
I see this quality [real interest and joy] in the work of [Pavel] Chekhov, of course, and [Alexei] Tolstoy and really just about any great writer.
George Saunders
What I really found myself interested in was the idea that our minds our so powerful and when we're living, the mind is dampened by the body. As crazy as our minds can get, they're only so crazy because they're physically housed.
George Saunders
