George Saunders quotes

George Saunders is an American writer acclaimed for his short stories, essays, and novels, often characterized by satire and social commentary. His works, such as the Booker Prize-winning novel "Lincoln in the Bardo," blend dark humor with deep empathy for his characters. He is widely respected for his unique voice and significant contributions to contemporary literature. Here are 85 of his quotes:

When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.

George Saunders

Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another.

George Saunders

More and more these days what I find myself doing in my stories is making a representation of goodness and a representation of evil and then having those two run at each other full-speed, like a couple of PeeWee football players, to see what happens. Who stays standing? Whose helmet goes flying off?

George Saunders

The traveller must, of course, always be cautious of the overly broad generalisation. But I am an American, and a paucity of data does not stop me from making sweeping, vague, conceptual statements and, if necessary, following these statements up with troops.

George Saunders

Reading is a form of prayer, a guided meditation that briefly makes us believe we're someone else, disrupting the delusion that we're permanent and at the center of the universe. Suddenly (we're saved!) other people are real again, and we're fond of them.

George Saunders

When I'm explaining something to you, if I'm being long-winded, and twisty in a non-productive way, I could make you feel vaguely insulted. And you'd have a right to be.

George Saunders

The best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that's where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don't come home your best self.

George Saunders

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

George Saunders

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

George Saunders

The scariest thought in the world is that someday I'll wake up and realize I've been sleepwalking through my life: underappreciating the people I love, making the same hurtful mistakes over and over, a slave to neuroses, fear, and the habitual.

George Saunders

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

George Saunders

...smile first, then speak.

George Saunders

Developing our sympathetic compassion is not only possible but the only reason for us to be here on earth.

George Saunders

We try, we fail, we posture, we aspire, we pontificate - and then we age, shrink, die, and vanish.

George Saunders

It's funny with fiction - once you cut something, it hasn't happened anymore.

George Saunders

Humor is what happens when we're told the truth quicker and more directly than we're used to.

George Saunders

Working with language is a means by which we can identify the bullshit within ourselves (and others).

George Saunders

The generalizing writer is like the passionate drunk, stumbling into your house mumbling: I know I'm not being clear, exactly, but don't you kind of feel what I'm feeling?

George Saunders

So I may not have had a gothic childhood, but childhood makes its own gothicity.

George Saunders

There comes that phase in life when, tired of losing, you decide to stop losing, then continue losing. Then you decide to really stop losing, and continue losing. The losing goes on and on so long you begin to watch with curiosity, wondering how low you can go.

George Saunders

The chances of a person breaking through their own habits and sloth and limited mind to actually write something that gets out there and matters to people are slim.

George Saunders

So for me the approach has become to go into a story not really sure of what I want to say, try to find some little seed crystal of interest, a sentence or an image or an idea, and as much as possible divest myself of any deep ideas about it. And then by this process of revision, mysteriously it starts to accrete meanings as you go.

George Saunders