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I like [Barak] Obama. I like him. So how far does rationality help to persuade anybody? You know, I'm not so sure.

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
Doe
Barak
Like
Persuade
Rationality
Obama
Anybody
Sure
Help
Helping

More quotes by George Saunders

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Writing and reading and speaking with specificity and skill has never seen more important to me than it does at this moment. It's what's between us and chaos.
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We have to move toward specificity, intelligence, facts, proof, and mutual affection. What I think people have to do now is be very, very assertive about the utter essentiality of intellectual undertakings.
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I've had that my whole career. People were always hedging around the question of: Why are you so dark? What happened to you?
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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
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It really strikes me how much of your energy in America, especially if you're from a working back-ground, is spent just keeping your head above water. It really saps your grace and your strength.
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I think if someone could demonstrate to me that fiction did no good, I would still do it, because I think it does good for me.
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I think when you see [Donald] Trump in person, my reaction is you kind of enjoy it. It's kind of an enjoyable night out.
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In fiction, conceptualizing, I've found, produces dull and over-controlled text.
George Saunders
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The story sometimes writes you into a corner.
George Saunders
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I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization.
George Saunders
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Nostalgia is, 'Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?'
George Saunders
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There's not a lot of whimsicality in the form, not a lot of indulgence allowed. Like when I was younger, I would sometimes go, Oh, every other section will be narrated by a chair. Or, It will be a double helix shape! That never really worked.
George Saunders
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The bottom line for me is that life is short and art is long.
George Saunders
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I often wonder if there are certain areas of real life that are roped off, with a sign saying, Art, don't come in here. But that's maybe a deeper question.
George Saunders
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For me, things were either very sullied or very pure, very controlled or very under-controlled.
George Saunders
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Every step was a victory. He had to remember that.
George Saunders
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In a story, for example, you'll start off with a character who is a little bit of a cartoon. That's not satisfying and you start revising. And as you revise you always are making it better by being specific and by observing more closely, which actually is really the same as saying you love your characters. The close observation equals love of them.
George Saunders
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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.
George Saunders
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I don't mind being criticized intelligently although I don't love it.
George Saunders
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My understanding of kindness is that we are hoping to be truly beneficial in every situation, and that this desire means a whole suite of things: being nicer, sure, but also being more aware, more present, more articulate, more fearless, less habituated, etc., etc. And sometimes even being firm, or having an edge, or even being angry.
George Saunders