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 More Quotes by George Saunders More Quotes From George Saunders I actually do believe in life after death. George Saunders life-after-death after-death believe I think when you see [Donald] Trump in person, my reaction is you kind of enjoy it. It's kind of an enjoyable night out. George Saunders kind night thinking 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 hurt believe book We have to move toward specificity, intelligence, facts, proof, and mutual affection. What I think people have to do now is be very, very assertive about the utter essentiality of intellectual undertakings. George Saunders people moving thinking I'm a big fan of the Russians: Isaac Babel is just an exquisite line-to-line stylist. George Saunders stylist lines fans I feel nervous because I revere [Zadie Smith] so much. I don't want to be stupid. If I say something stupid, just interrupt me. George Saunders nervous stupid want Later, I went one step further, by putting in some invented "historical" bits [into the Lincoln in the Bardo]. And reading those alongside the actual historical bits was like looking into a sort of a painful mirror, because "my" parts were so show-offy at first. They stood out because they were so flamboyant. George Saunders historical mirrors reading There was one sequence of days [making Lincoln in the Bardo] when I had halfway decided to use the historical nuggets, but I wasn't quite sure it would work. I'd be in my room for six or seven hours, cutting up bits of paper with quotes and arranging them on the floor, with this little voice in my head saying, "Hey, this isn't writing!" But at the end of that day, I felt that the resulting section was doing important emotional work George Saunders cutting emotional writing Whole swaths of the book [Lincoln in the Bardo] are made up of verbatim quotes from various historical sources, which I cut up and rearranged to form part of the narrative. George Saunders cutting historical book I'm not thinking in any big thematic or conceptual terms - especially in this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] when I was trying to make the voices more active, more energetic. George Saunders voice book thinking Just through the process of trying to make the living and the dead feel real, all these little benefits came out. And these benefits turned out to be much more articulate statements of what I really believe. And somehow they were more convincing because they were arrived at at such length. George Saunders real trying believe I watched a documentary about the immigrant crisis around the world. And it does make me blush at all the times I've stood up on the stage and given your speech about the healing power of fiction. George Saunders documentaries speech healing 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 always-trying littles fiction In my case, when I am trying to be "kind" I often default in a sort of toothless loving-all stance that is, actually, not kind, because it is not truthful. George Saunders be-kind truthful trying I'm a liberal and I'm left of Gandhi and I don't like Trump. George Saunders trump left "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 light kindness mean I was raised Catholic,I took from that was a sense of theater and drama, and also the idea that there were truths that couldn't actually be uttered directly but really had to be reached through ritual. You come out of those Masses so moved, and you're like, "Why did that happen?" And the truth of it is that it happened through an hour of highly enacted ritual. George Saunders catholic drama ideas 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 kind mean people I don't know how you feel, but I feel like writing, clarity of thought, and truth have been validated because we see what happens when we get lax in those areas. I'm excited by the idea that writers like us can actually reach out and try to understand and prod and agitate the people who are in support of Trump because we have the tools to do it. We're language people and we're idea people. George Saunders writing people ideas I don't like that new age posture where you kind of tilt your head. I don't like that posture right now. I want something a little more confident and more sure of the values that we're defending, which are the old ones, love and empathy and patience and tolerance and civility. Not to get into politics or anything. George Saunders empathy tolerance want-something
