Quote

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.

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
Moment
Moments
Specificity
Doe
Skill
Important
Speaking
Writing
Chaos
Never
Skills
Seen
Reading

More quotes by George Saunders

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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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That's one of the reasons I take a lot of consolation in fiction. You have years to work on it. I think that allows you to reach for the best part of your reader instead of a lot of the internet stuff, in which you're kind of reaching for the worst or the most shallow part of your reader.
George Saunders
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I have a lot of theories about the beneficial effects of fiction, but I'm always trying to get away from them a little bit.
George Saunders
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My stories, I can understand them as a little toy that you wind up and you put it on the floor and it just goes under the coach. That I get. Beyond that, I'm a little lost.
George Saunders
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I read to make myself feel awake.
George Saunders
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My heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love.
George Saunders
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All traditions are also full of meanness for the sake of meanness.
George Saunders
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I think each writer has to seek her most energetic prose style. She has to find a way to write so that nobody can deny it.
George Saunders
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You can say you're a liberal and everybody laughs and it's a good time.
George Saunders
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Monologues, in some ways, are the most scientific descriptions of consciousness and even of gatherings.
George Saunders
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The greatest thing about writing a book is that at first it's all inchoate, but the more you work on it, the more the book teaches you its internal rules.
George Saunders
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Nostalgia is, 'Hey, remember the other mall that used to be there?'
George Saunders
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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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I think the biggest single issue is income inequity and what this is doing to the good old American dream. This and corporatism - this delusional idea that shareholder value outweighs everything else.
George Saunders
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A culture's ability to understand the world and itself is critical to its survival. But today we are led into the arena of public debate by seers whose main gift is their ability to compel people to continue to watch them.
George Saunders
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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
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Stay alert. The big moral crossroads in your life may not come labeled as such.
George Saunders
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I'm not a big fan of my books going on cross-country road trips. They get arrogant and, next thing, start aspiring to become 'large-print' books. I say, let them stay home and be regular small-print books.
George Saunders
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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
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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.
George Saunders