Quotessence
Home / Authors / George Saunders
George Saunders

George Saunders Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllWritingIfsThinkingWayTryingKindPeopleStoriesKnowsFeels

Famous George Saunders Quotes

“I think that tri [to Ram Bahadur Bomjon] was the first time I'd even seen something that made me think, or really feel: "Ah, I don't know what's really going on in the world - I think I do, and it feels like I do, but whatever is really going on is, de facto, beyond the scope of my comprehension - the best we can do is look for hints." I'd known that intellectually before but that was the first time I really believed it viscerally.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldFeelsFirstsLooksMadeCan DoKnownFirst TimeScopeHintsComprehensionRams
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“The only thing I might have noticed [and this is pretty anecdotal] is that there is some tendency to need to be taught that 'writing is rewriting' - maybe more of a sense than was pervasive 10 years ago that the first or second pass of a story is sufficient. That is an idea that is easily dislodged, but I suspect it might have something to do with the turnaround time re: blogging and so on - this sense that there is some essential truth about a first draft that one runs the risk of "ruining" by coming back to it.”

NeedsWritingYearsFirstsIdeasStoriesMightRunningRiskTaughtEssentialsYears AgoTendenciesSufficientSuspectsComing BackBloggingRewritingTurnaround
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“One of the sad things about this political season is that it allows [requires] us to get behind our big "Liberal" or "Conservative" banner and forget, for a time, that the big problems in our country have been around a long time and have been batted back and forth, caused and exacerbated, by both sides, and are more spiritual or ethical than [merely] political.”

LongHas BeensCountryProblemBigsSpiritualPoliticalSidesForgetBehindsLong TimeSeasonsConservativeOur CountryEthicalBoth SidesBack And ForthBannerBig ProblemsSad Things
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“Both [Donald] Trump and Bernie [Sanders] got to this idea of the vanishing middle class sooner and with more passion than more mainstream politicians, and benefited from it. The difference, of course, is that Bernie understood this in a more compassionate framework, and talked about it in conjunction with a revitalization of another part of the American project, which is the notion that we are all created equal, and that our laws and culture and action ought to reflect that.”

IdeasActionLawCulturePassionCoursesDifferencesClassMiddleOughtTrumpPoliticianEqualProjectsUnderstoodNotionMiddle ClassCompassionateMainstreamFrameworkVanishingConjunctionsRevitalization
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“I've been reading about and writing about the Civil War period and it is so striking that slavery was never made right - [Abraham] Lincoln was killed, Reconstruction came along, and all of that inequity was frozen in place and carried forward rather smugly. So I think the burden is now upon us white people, to say that this systemic inequality offends us.”

PeopleThinkingWritingMadeWarReadingWhitePeriodsSlaveryBurdenInequalityCivil WarFrozenAbrahamReconstruction
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“Nothing will turn you into a Civil War buff like five years of reading. Some of the letters that people wrote from that time are so deep and so beautifully articulate. And you realize, especially with the stuff that's going on now in America, that it's always been chaos - people were disagreeing at least as much as they are now and 20,000 people would die in a day. It's the scale that's amazing, and also the proximity to our own time.”

PeopleYearsWarAmericaDiesTurnsReadingStuffRealizingFiveLettersChaosScalesCivil WarFive YearsProximity
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“One of the things I noticed about the Trump supporters was a lot of projected fear. I can't tell you how many times a conversation went like this: "We've got to stop these immigrants, because it's terrible." I'd say, "Okay, what personally have you observed about this?" And there would be basically nothing in that box. And I'd say, "Where'd you get your information?" thinking they were going to say Fox. But they would always say, "Well, I get my information from all kinds of sources." Fox is kind of center-left to a lot of people now.”

PeopleThinkingWellsKindI CanWould BeLeftInformationSourceTrumpTerribleConversationOkayBoxesAll KindsImmigrantsFoxesSupporter
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“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”

WritingLittlesImportantEndsUseFeltBitsVoiceHoursRoomsCuttingEmotionalPaperSixDecidedHistoricalSevenHeySectionsSequenceHalfwayArrangingNuggetsVoices In My Head
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingKindI CanBookRealTurnsBehindsTheeNovelistsProseDistinctionGet AwayEfficiencyMinimumVersusScrewsSpills
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“What was fun for me with this book [Lincoln in the Bardo] was to start out with the principle that went, "We're going to fight every day to make this not a novel; make it too short to be a novel." And then with that principle in place, the book sort of starts to say, "Okay, but I really need this. I really need some historical nuggets." And you're like, "All right, but keep it under control."”

NeedsBookFightingFunPrinciplesNovelOkayHistoricalToo ShortNuggets
Author:George Saunders
Create image