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Quote by George Saunders

“The writer, in order to proceed, is theoretically trying to predict where his complex skein of language and image has left his reader, who he has likely never met and who is actually thousands of readers.”

Quote by George Saunders

Author

George Saunders

George Saunders, born on December 2, 1958, is an American writer known for his unique humor and profound insights. His works, primarily short stories, have gained widespread recognition and have been honored with numerous literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize. more

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“I am always considering the reader. Although this is admittedly kind of odd: Which reader? On what day? In what mood? For me, that "reader" is actually just me, if I had never read the story before.”

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“I'm trying to read/edit my story as if I have no existing knowledge of the story, no investment in it, no sense of what Herculean effort went into writing page 23, no pretensions as to why the dull patch on page 4 is important for the fireworks that will happen on page 714.”

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“As a writer I'm essentially just trying to impersonate a first-time reader, who picks up the story and has to decide, at every point, whether to keep going.”

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Author:George Saunders

“Writing a story I am just trying to find some little interesting thing to start out with: something small, even trivial. Preferably something that doesn't have a lot of thematic or political baggage - a little crumb that is interesting.”

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Author:George Saunders

“With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process of getting all of my notes typed up, then scanning through the notes, trying to extract or find certain vignettes that seem like they might write well - that might have a potential for good energy, shape, etc. And then at some point I start stringing these together, keeping an eye on the word count.”

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“The one thing fiction and non-fiction writing have in common for me is that sense of trying to get the sentences to be minimal but at the same time be a little overfull - to encourage them to do a kind of poetic work.”

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Author:George Saunders

“I stopped doing romantic comedies. I just stopped. They're terrible. They're bad. They're not funny and so they shouldn't be a romantic comedy because most of the time they're not romantic. They shouldn't be called romantic comedy.”

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“It's such a joy to be able to play someone who is angry. It's a joy and a relief. Having to be nice all the time is exhausting and boring.”

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“I hate the word assistant. No one works for me. I work with everyone because I couldn't do anything without the people that I work with.”

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“I'm like the queen of planning and scheduling and I'm trying very hard to stop it. I just want to finish what I'm doing and go home. I want to have a weekend. I want to have breakfast, a stack of pancakes.”

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