The one thing about A Christmas Carol that always bothers me is that Cratchit is so sweet and perfect. He's like an Ivy League kid who just is labeled "poor." He doesn't have any bad habits. He's never cranky with his kids. George Saunders More Quotes by George Saunders More Quotes From George Saunders In the Buddhist texts, some of them say, when you die, basically that wild horse gets cut loose, and the mind is incredibly powerful and expansive, omniscient and can go anywhere and see anything, but - and this is the catch - it's colored by the habits of thought we made in life. George Saunders buddhist horse powerful I think the path for a young writer might be one that says, "I have to accept myself, this is what I am. I can't eradicate my defects. I can work on them." George Saunders path might thinking The switch that I'd like to throw on is the one that says, "Look, you're a human being whose mind is every bit as active as anybody else's. Your experiences are just as real." For that matter, even if they're even if they're crazy, they're valid. They occurred in this world so they're valid topics for literature. George Saunders crazy real mind Whether you're eighteen or sixty, in a certain way, whatever you know is valid. George Saunders eighteen certain way 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 wild-imagination hard-work thinking Every writer has to find the thing to keep her eye on about which she has strong opinions. That's of course deeply personal, but the nice thing is that it has to do with joy rather than fear. It has to do with you. If you're funny, your method will be to try to be funnier. Which again is empowering I think. George Saunders nice eye strong As Flannery O'Connor says, a person can choose what she writes but she can't choose what she makes live. Some people are really acoustic writers and so for them the secret revision is sound. Other people may revise in terms of the way a paragraph feels. There's a million ways to do it. George Saunders secret writing people 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 style writing thinking 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 billions determine decision When you're embarking on a piece of writing, the anxiety is just too much, especially when you're young and you're trying to figure out if this is your thing or not. You feel like, "if I don't write a good story, I gotta get going to law school!" George Saunders law writing school 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 writing book firsts It's a time when a lot of principle virtues are being tested. Do we still believe in the truth? Do we still believe in empathy? Do we still believe the protection of the weakest among us? These are yes or no questions, but the means of communication is all tied up with those virtues and you can't abandon those virtues as you pursue them. George Saunders communication mean believe If you want to be good, all you've got to do is be good. George Saunders be-good When we talk about adversity, this is the moment when character really gets tested. When things aren't going the way you want and you can't see anyway that they're going to go the way you want. That's kind of when those old virtues really become valuable and vulnerable also. George Saunders adversity want character Sometimes I just turn on the TV and I'm like, wait a minute, that guy [Donald Trump]? It's incredible that he did all those things and he still won. It's hard to process. George Saunders tvs guy waiting If you have a friend, what's the best way you can experience her beauty? It's to really accept her. She's weird in this way, I accept it. She's hard to talk to, I accept it. Then that person eventually will come all the way out into the sun. I think it's the same way with our talent. We say, "Look, I'm not going to judge you. I'm going to try to use you in the very best way." George Saunders judging trying thinking If you're going to make an emotional connection with somebody, whether it's in the story or in the world, there's a certain amount of self-acceptance that is required. George Saunders emotional acceptance self 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 crazy powerful ideas The way I understood purgatory - and maybe you've got a different version - but in Chicago in the '70s, the idea was it was like detention. You had screwed up and you go over there in purgatory and you sit there until the end of days and then we'll decide. You'd made your mistake, and you were in prison, and it's not terrible and it's not great, and you feel a little crappy because you were not in the presence of God. George Saunders the-end-of-the-day mistake ideas I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them. George Saunders air stories writing
