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In the reason that the contrast between the absolute and the relative is so terrible is because we believe so fully in ourselves as permanent, continuous, and central. I feel insane saying this, but if one weren't so deluded about the permanent reality of the self, a lot of this pain would actually lessen.

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
Reason
Absolutes
Deluded
Self
Absolute
Continuous
Feel
Fully
Contrast
Feels
Terrible
Relative
Believe
Saying
Central
Would
Actually
Weren
Pain
Insane
Reality
Permanent
Lessen

More quotes by 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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Whatever you love, that will be an influence. It just will. So in effect the young writer's job is: go out and find some stuff to love.
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Every step was a victory. He had to remember that.
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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.
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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.
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Your first responsibility is to yourself and to your own goodness of heart.
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So many people mentioned this at these rallies. You go to these things and it's kind of like an oldies concert. I mean, it's not hostile.
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Working with language is a means by which we can identify the bullshit within ourselves (and others).
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The old and honorable American notion, that a person who works hard should be able to live in freedom and security, with dignity - seems to have taken on a secondary status.
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Intelligent, heartfelt stories that tell a whole new set of truths about growing up American. Julie Orringer writes with virtuosity and depth about the fears, cruelties, and humiliations of childhood, but then does that rarest, and more difficult, thing: writes equally beautifully about the moments of victory and transcendence.
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In the absolute sense - kind of from the God's-eye view - God might feel like, I made this thing that has all of that in it, all the horror and all the beauty.
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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.
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I turned 54 this year and I find myself feeling like I'm in a bit of a race to get down on paper the way I really feel about life - or the way it has presented to me. And because it has presented to me very beautifully, this is hard. It is technically very hard to show positive manifestations.
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I guess what I'm trying to say is that whatever weirdness was going to be in there, I felt, had to be earned. And it had to be required by the emotional needs of the book.
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From the beginning [of the Lincoln in the Bardo], I actually had it in mind not to write a novel. I'd kind of gotten past that point where I felt bad for never having written a novel, even to where I felt really good about it, like I was a real purist.
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Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.
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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.
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Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible.
George Saunders
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A country doesn't need a businessman to run it: it needs a heartful, worldly, compassionate leader.
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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.
George Saunders