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For me, when I'm coming up to a place where I have to make somebody up, it's almost like driving and taking your hands off the wheel.
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
Taking
Coming
Somebody
Almost
Place
Hands
Wheel
Make
Wheels
Like
Driving
More quotes by George Saunders
There's a really nice moment in the life of a piece of writing where the writer starts to get a feeling of it outgrowing him - or he starts to see it having a life of its own that doesn't have anything to do with his ego or his desire to 'be a good writer'.
George Saunders
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
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
I watched a bunch of kids movies on Christmas. I was kind of joking with our family by asking, Is anyone allowed to die in a kid's movie anymore?
George Saunders
It's funny with fiction - once you cut something, it hasn't happened anymore.
George Saunders
I think it was a big revelation to me earlier in my life that people who appear to be evil are actually not. In other words, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, Yuck, yuck, yuck, I'm gonna be evil.
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
In Catholicism, we would say you're going to be judged, so therefore you should do better now. For me, Buddhism is somewhat more workable because instead of saying I have to do good, it says I have to notice what I'm actually doing.
George Saunders
And I have finally realized that, you know, it's not a given that my lifespan will accommodate my writing aspirations. It could be that it would take me 12 more books at six years each to get it - which means I would have to live to be 126. Which I fully intend to do, of course.
George Saunders
I think that fiction has a part to play in urging us, as a species, toward compassion.
George Saunders
It's on us to investigate ourselves for any lingering sense that we are 'giving' equality. We are not. It is already given. And not by us.
George Saunders
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
I keep thinking of Robert Stone making the distinction between the word sublime and the word beautiful. He described being in a battle as sublime. Because even though people were dying, it was such a huge sensory experience that it became sublime.
George Saunders
Compassion doesn't have to be weak or enabling it can also be quite bold.
George Saunders
I read to make myself feel awake.
George Saunders
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
I've always wanted to write energetic, atypical sentences, i.e., sentences that were not normal or bland.
George Saunders
Success is like a mountain in front of you that keeps growing. If you're not careful, it will take up your whole life.
George Saunders
For me, things were either very sullied or very pure, very controlled or very under-controlled.
George Saunders
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
