The story sometimes writes you into a corner. George Saunders More Quotes by George Saunders More Quotes From George Saunders If you at least try to do the things that excite you, it will make you a more expansive and present person - you’ll feel, at the end of your life, that at least you took the shot. George Saunders shots ends trying My heartfelt wish for you: as you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. George Saunders heartfelt self wish This may be the one clear truth of the so-called border issue: Put a poor country next to a rich one and watch which way the traffic flows. Add impediments, the traffic endeavors to flow around them. Eilimate disparity. the traffic stops. George Saunders issues borders country I guess what I'm trying to say is that whatever weirdness was going to be in there, I felt, had to be earned. And it had to be required by the emotional needs of the book. George Saunders emotional trying book 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 form shapes sometimes [Reading Swing Time] made me a feel a little bit like when I used to read David [Foster] Wallace. Like, "I can't play that game. I wish I could, but I can't do it." George Saunders swings reading games It blew my mind, reading Swing Time, that I could take any sentence in the book, and it was one of the most beautiful sentences written in English. George Saunders reading beautiful book I don't feel like I have the intelligence to really inhabit a consistently high level of prose. George Saunders prose levels feels I don't really write beautifully naturally, unlike some people. George Saunders writing people There were several points where I would kind of turn to the book and say, "Get thee behind me." I don't think real novelists do that. But I make a distinction between prose that's very efficiency-minded (like, the minimum I can get away with), versus loosening the screws and letting the words spill out beautifully and so on. George Saunders real book thinking 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 real writing past I do find the values in A Christmas Carol significant. It is important not to be mean and stingy and not to give up love for money. George Saunders giving-up important mean 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 ivy sweet kids What's really baffling to me is the way that the technology has risen up to help us become more materialistic. George Saunders technology helping way I think when you get to export your creative impulse into something, it kind of lessens that busy energy that can be so confrontational and pissy. George Saunders energy creative thinking One of the ideas that runs through this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] is this Buddhist notion that the mind is incredibly powerful; not the brain but the mind. George Saunders buddhist powerful running I have this tendency to take a little bit of questionable knowledge and riff on it. George Saunders questionable tendencies littles If you could press a button and your ego investment was less, the toothache would be less. Or less tragic at least. George Saunders buttons ego would-be 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 pain believe reality I had an experience a few years ago where I was on a plane in which one of the engines went out. I couldn't even remember my name. I was just repeating the word no over and over. George Saunders names remember years
