Quote

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

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
Wells
Critical
Book
Anybody
Well
Seem
Much
Hurt
Believe
Books
Cheered
Really
Doesn
Scientifically
Moments
Transformation
Seems
Personally

More quotes by George Saunders

Image
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
Image
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.
George Saunders
Image
From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew amount them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, I had not killed, and never would.
George Saunders
Image
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.
George Saunders
Image
Monologues, in some ways, are the most scientific descriptions of consciousness and even of gatherings.
George Saunders
Image
When I write I know that I'm going to have to produce 40 percent more than I need.
George Saunders
Image
Stories, as much as we like to talk about them, retrospectively, as emanations of theme or worldview or intention, occur primarily as technical objects when they're being written. Or at least they do for me. They're the result of thousands of decisions made at speed during revision.
George Saunders
Image
Of course there's objective truth, but when we're looking at people's accounts of it, it seems the real truth lies in the accretion of all these different versions.
George Saunders
Image
All traditions are also full of meanness for the sake of meanness.
George Saunders
Image
Character is that sum total of moments we can't explain.
George Saunders
Image
In my personal and spiritual life, I reject that. I don't believe in that. I'm always trying to get my mind into a less judgmental place, making less rigid judgments about things like perverse versus pure. But in terms of prose, those sorts of oppositions seem to work.
George Saunders
Image
Don't be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible.
George Saunders
Image
I do find the values in A Christmas Carol significant. It is important not to be mean and stingy and not to give up love for money.
George Saunders
Image
A country doesn't need a businessman to run it: it needs a heartful, worldly, compassionate leader.
George Saunders
Image
America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamourous reasonable voice.
George Saunders
Image
The best thing we can bring to any fight is a calm and compassionate mind.
George Saunders
Image
Toni Morrison seems to have a lot of faith in people - that's what I mean by gentle power.
George Saunders
Image
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.
George Saunders
Image
The writer, in order to proceed, is theoretically trying to predict where his complex skein of language and image has left his reader, who he has likely never met and who is actually thousands of readers.
George Saunders
Image
For me, things were either very sullied or very pure, very controlled or very under-controlled.
George Saunders