Quote

My mind has an obsessive, neurotic quality, but I also have a very hard work ethic. I know that a lot of people think, oh, you have a wild imagination. I don't, really. If ten people are sitting around and someone says, Hey complete this sentence in a funny way, I'm never ahead of the pack.

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
Way
Funny
Wild
Obsessive
Never
Someone
Ahead
Pack
Think
Around
Ten
Neurotic
Thinking
Also
Complete
Packs
People
Hard
Sitting
Sentence
Work
Says
Hey
Mind
Imagination
Sentences
Really
Quality
Ethics
Ethic

More quotes by George Saunders

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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
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Sometimes I think fiction exists to model the way God might think of us, if God had the time and inclination to do so.
George Saunders
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So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.
George Saunders
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All along, my mantra was: Don't write unless it contributes to the emotion, and do anything you do in service of the emotion only.
George Saunders
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There comes that phase in life when, tired of losing, you decide to stop losing, then continue losing. Then you decide to really stop losing, and continue losing. The losing goes on and on so long you begin to watch with curiosity, wondering how low you can go.
George Saunders
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The thing I've discovered that is a help is that there isn't a simple virtue or a simple vice. They're always connected. If you have Tendency A, that you loathe, you can almost be sure that Tendency B, which you love, is somehow connected to it.
George Saunders
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I actually believe that a lot of what people call originality has to do with persistence in the craft.
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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I have nothing. My model is I have nothing figured out, and I'm starting with some little nugget and hoping that it will talk back to me enough to let it grow.
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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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
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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
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Anyone can be shamed, but feeling guilt requires empathy within.
George Saunders
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I came to writing kind of late. I was an engineer, and the one thing I've learned is that you have to steer a project in the direction of the maximum fun for you. You could say lively energy, or you have to try to be intrigued. Basically, if you were a musician and you were playing joylessly, nobody would want to hear you.
George Saunders
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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
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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
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The scariest thought in the world is that someday I'll wake up and realize I've been sleepwalking through my life: underappreciating the people I love, making the same hurtful mistakes over and over, a slave to neuroses, fear, and the habitual.
George Saunders
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The millions or billions of micro decisions that you're going to make, that's what will determine who you are as a writer, not you deciding in advance.
George Saunders
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When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.
George Saunders
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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.
George Saunders